Access to Technology

1. Access to Technology September 25, 2014 Dr. Kapatamoyo

2. Research Premises The first premise is that the patterns of offline disparity will be reproduced in online status, as indicated by information skill and knowledge. Here we have the concrete findings from prior research that suggest gender, age, income, education, and race may be the significant predictors. That is, being less educated, less wealthy, being older, being female, and belonging to marginalized ethnic groups will be associated with less Internet-related personal information skill and knowledge.

3. Findings • In assessing the possession of resources with regard to Internet access and us: • it was found that higher levels of various Internet access factors, such as the frequency of daily use, years of Internet experience, and the number of access location, were significantly associated with higher levels of skill and knowledge in other domains such as diverse skill sets and content creation. • Conclusion: the author posits “that levels of Internet access factors will be positively associated with levels of Internet-related personal information skill and knowledge.”

4. Major Issues • Framed in: • Scope, Reach, Speed and Size. • Digital Divide • Information, Knowledge and Judgment • Surveillance, • Internet-related personal information skill and knowledge • Social stratification

5. Digital Divide • Digital Divide = • a situation where some people have access to modern information technology while others do not. • Assumptions = • people with access to telephone, computers, and the Internet have opportunities denied to people without access to these devices.

6. Digital Divide • Origins = • DD was popularized in the 1990s when WWW was become ubiquitous. • ICT was discovered not to be a panacea to all problems. • (Pippa Norris) Two fundamental dimensions = • Global Divide and Social Divide

7. Global Divide • Global Divide (affected by): • Less wealth • Inadequate telecommunications infrastructure • Primary language is not English • Literacy is low and education is inadequate • Culture may not prioritize participating in the Information Age

8. Social Divide • Social Divide (affected by Social Economic Status): • Age • Wealth/Income • Education • Gender • Ethnicity • Occupation • Geographic location

9. Critique of DD • Mark Warschauer= Three reasons why DD is not helpful: • DD = Promotes the idea that difference between “haves” and “have-nots” is simply a question of access. • DD = Assumes that everyone is on one side or another of a huge canyon. • DD = Implies that a lack of access will lead to a less advantaged position in society (there is no simple causality).

10. Digital Divide: Controversies • Access to information does not guarantee use. • Access to information may lead to different results among different people. • Passive vs. Active mode of information access. • The general information environment may show bias toward particular groups. • Information withdrawal, depression, helplessness, etc. in the face of an excessive amount of information.

11. Information Divide: Underlying Factors • Formal access: availability of ICTs (both technologies and content) at home, work and other settings. • Effectiveness: perceived accessibility and actual use of ICTs. • Engagement: meaningfulness, relevance and usefulness. • Outcome/consequence: short-term & long-term effects as a result of use.

12. Information Divide: Key Issues to Examine • Access: • whether information is available or not to certain social groups. • Content: • the type of content accessible to different social groups. • Process: • the process through which people learn to avail themselves of digital information.

13. Information Divide: Key Issues to Examine • Design: • how particular designs facilitate information processing for some groups but not others. • e.g., http://pawpawmail.com/ and http://bigscreenlive.com/ for seniors. • Learning (knowledge): • different levels of learning curves for different individuals to access certain types of information. • Perceived need: • how different individuals display different levels of perceived needs for digital information in their lives.

14. Knowledge Society? • Knowledge has been widely recognized as the most important factor of production in the new economy. • Yet easy availability of information may not necessarily lead to more knowledge in society. • Therefore, • Information Society ≠ Knowledge Society • Why?

15. The Knowledge Network • Companies that own or control data are at the leaders in new economic paradigm (e.g. Google, FaceBook). • Data: bits of information such as lists (e.g. phone list) or records in a database or spreadsheet • Information: organized data that can be communicated • Knowledge: information (i.e. organized data) that can be used to achieve some or other result • Wisdom: selection of appropriate knowledge for a specific task

16. The Knowledge Network Hierarchy

17. Policy Implications • Universal Access vs. Universal Service • Communications Act of 1934, • Established the FCC to regulate wire telegraph, telephones and broadcasting. • Also, negotiated with AT&T to provide Universal Service. • TCOM Act of 1996, explicitly mandated Telephone companies to provide Universal Service, paid for by consumers. • Now the discussion is about Broadband access.

18. Ubiquitous Personal Information • Assumptions: • “As the digitalization of personal information becomes omnipresent, the preexisting divide between marginalized social groups that have no power to understand and resist information surveillance and those equipped with such power may be magnified.” • “(increase in) digital divide among different social groups in terms of skill and knowledge to resist unwarranted surveillance.”

19. Digital Reproduction • Digital reproduction hypothesis: • that is, “whether and to what extent inequalities in offline social status are reproduced as disparities in online status in the two dimensions of 1) personal information skill and knowledge and 2)user behavior and knowledge in guarding against unwarranted Internet-based data surveillance.”

20. Technology determinism? • Technological determinists have posited the structural properties of new technology may inherently lead to positive outcomes and progress. • The premise in this projection is the possibility of social mobility enabled by new technology. • The Internet can lower transaction cost in information seeking, facilitate the distribution of knowledge, and ultimately contribute to alleviate offline social disparities. • Skeptics, however say, “the Internet may only exacerbate existing social inequalities, while disproportionately benefiting those already under privileged status.”

21. Critical Analysis • Contradictions to analyze: • The conditions that incubate systematic differences in abilities to control or resist information surveillance; • The predictive power of offline sociodemographic status; and • The enabling role of the medium itself, that is, the positive or negative influence of Internet use and access on user power.