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July 25, 2009

The racial divide in Internet devices

A Pew Internet report says that while 56% of Americans have accessed the Internet wirelessly, there’s a stark racial divide in the devices we use. About half of the African-American and English-speaking Hispanic population accesses the Net through cellphones and other handheld devices, but only 28% of white Americans have ever done so.

Three bullet points quoted from the report:

* 48% of Africans Americans have at one time used their mobile device to access the internet for information, emailing, or instant-messaging, half again the national average of 32%.

* 29% of African Americans use the internet on their handheld on an average day, also about half again the national average of 19%.

* Compared with 2007, when 12% of African Americans used the internet on their mobile on the average day, use of the mobile internet is up by 141%.

We can read this in many different ways:

  • Mobiles are helping to end the digital racial divide

  • Mobiles are extending the digital racial divide by providing second-class Net access to African Americans

  • For a far greater percentage of African Americans than white Americans, the Net is less generative and participatory

  • We’d better make sure that the carriers become device independent and Net neutral

[Tags: digital_divide mobiles pew race ]

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Categories: Uncategorized Tagged with: broadband • digital rights • digital_divide • mobiles • net neutrality • pew • policy • race Date: July 25th, 2009 dw

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July 7, 2009

Eszter cries “Grinch!” on MJ lottery

Eszter Hargittai uses the lottery for tickets to view Michael Jackson’s corpse to illustrate her point about the existence, persistence, and importance of the digital divide.

[Tags: eszter_hargittai michael_jackson digital_divide ]

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Categories: Uncategorized Tagged with: digital rights • digital_divide • eszter_hargittai • michael_jackson • policy Date: July 7th, 2009 dw

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