[Air-L] facebook ethnic diversity?

[Gonzalo Bacigalupe]

This digital divide data is from a report dated 2005 (www.civilrights.org/publications/nation-online/digitaldivide.pdf). 
 It has been cited in later reports. Digital divide has decreased but what may be more interested to analyze is the digital literacy levels. Access does not mean use or access to the information.
Does anyone knows of new reports?


Gonzalo Bacigalupe
@bacigalupe
Associate Professor
University of Massachusetts
Boston
 



On Dec 18, 2009, at 6:00 PM, air-l-request at listserv.aoir.org wrote:

> Message: 7
> Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:27:12 +0200
> From: gustavo <gustavo at soc.haifa.ac.il>
> To: <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] facebook ethnic diversity?
> Message-ID: <dca47d810f3bcd2f6b31d68db3239b13 at soc.haifa.ac.il>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
> 
> More on this issue, selection bias is present.
> According to the 2009 Report for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
> Education Fund by
> Robert W. Fairlie University of California, Santa Cruz and
> National Poverty Center, University of Michigan
> 
> "The Digital Divide in the US is large and does not appear to be
> disappearing soon. Blacks and Latinos are much less likely to have access
> to home computers than are white, non-Latinos (50.6 and 48.7 percent
> compared to 74.6 percent). They are also less likely to have Internet
> access at home (40.5 and 38.1 percent compared to 67.3 percent).
> ? Asians have home computer and Internet access rates that are higher than
> white, non-Latino rates (77.7 and 70.3 percent), and Native Americans have
> lower rates (51.6 and 40.9 percent)."
> 
>> From here the study of Facebook has an implicit sample selection bias.
> Minorities are less likely to have access. Individuals that belong to
> minorities groups and have access are a selected group of highly skilled
> and educated that are not different in their social characteristics to the
> whites having access. Facebook results do not reflect the state of social
> and digital inequalities in the population. Furthermore, is blurres the
> real divisions in society.
> 
> Gustavo Mesch, Associate Professor
> University of Haifa.
> Chair, Communication and Information Technologies Section
> American Sociological Association