Overcoming Digital Deprivation

IT&Society, Volume 1, Issue 5, Summer 2003, pp. 166-180

The digital divide reflects the difference between institutional-level Websites and the individual-level exclusions from opportunities to participate, compete and prosper in today’s knowledge-based economies. As ability to manipulate this information technology becomes more crucial, the negative result for those excluded is digital deprivation. More solid theoretical frameworks, conceptual blocks and socio-economic
metrics are needed to assess the effects of public policy interventions. Special attention is given to the “Plugged In” project in the poorest part of Silicon Valley, a model of public
policy intervention aimed at low -income communities at the grass-roots level. This project affords these users the opportunity to experiment and develop expertise to overcome conditions of poverty and inequality.

Overcoming Institutional Marginalization

Critical Cyberculture Studies: Current Terrains Future Directions.  Editors, David Silver and Adrieene Massanari, New York University Press, 2006.

‘Tell Mee’: A Political Experiment in Community Practice.

International Institute of Informatics and Systemics, 2007.

The creation, design and implementation of Tell Mee, an open source web-based data collection system both suggests the development of an interdisciplinary field and works as a case study in designing technology with controls set for conditions that reflect social values. Designed by Blanca Gordo & Richard Carlson, Tell Mee builds the research capacity of a grassroots CBO focused on serving the public health needs of underserved low-income social ethnic groups disproportionately and negatively affected by HIV/AIDS. The challenge and opportunity was constructing an easy to manipulate open source web-based data collection system and application.

What Planning Crisis? Reflections on the “Digital Divide” and the Persistence of Unequal Opportunity.

Berkeley Planning Journal. Volume 16, 2002.

This article examines the “digital divide” problem in relation to social and economic development. The digital divide refers to the difference between those who are able to and have the opportunity to participate, compete, and prosper in knowledge-based economies and in a society organized around social networks and those who do not. The thesis is that ownership
and the ability to use and manipulate the productive function of technology is becoming an important component in the process of production, consumption, and exchange in society. The negative result for those who are unable to create through the process of technology is digital destitution.The alienation suffered may be a result of deprivation and unequal opportunity to experiment and learn how to create and relate to people through the use of technology. The author proposes public policy intervention in the way of creating valuable opportunity to experience and develop the social technical skills necessary to attain and retain gainful employment. The proposal is provision of new Community Technology Development (CTD) programs that support the process of social and economic development at the community level. Giving people the opportunity to experiment the process of production is key to addressing the ongoing process of poverty and inequality.

The "Digital Divide" and the Persistence of Urban Poverty

(Reprint) in Progressive Planners Reader, 2004 and Planners Network. Number 141, 2000.

Disconnected: A Community and Technology Needs Assesment of the Southeast Los Angeles Region

Blanca Gordo, Xitlaly Aranda, Jonathan Mason, and Pedro Ruiz. (July 29, 2008). Center for Latino Policy Research. Policy Reports and Research Briefs.

This technology needs assessment report of populations living in the Southeast Los Angeles (SELA) region addresses the root causes and dilemmas of the “digital divide” problem. This study addresses the central question: how can the Southeast Cities Technology Collaborative (SCTC) structure a regional intervention project that spearheads development in the productive use of information technology and benefits a low-income population with low educational attainment in Southeast Los Angeles (SELA) cities?

The study first provides a regional survey of the fiscal, institutional, and technological challenges facing this demographic region. The SELA region is a sub-section of Los Angeles County and comprised of eight cities and one unincorporated district: Bell, Bell Gardens, Cudahy, Huntington Park, Maywood, South Gate, Vernon, Walnut Park, and the Florence-Firestone area. The demographic survey identifies that the SELA region has strong indicators of digital divide inequality.

The study further provides an assessment of existing digital divide intervention efforts in the SELA region: public access to computers and the internet at public schools, public libraries, nonprofit and community-based organization, city-initiated programs, and private for-profit services. The study takes account of community impressions and provides specific recommendations for institutional changes than can better integrate the population into a positive development process.

The study finds that investment in coordinating the integration of human capacity and technical infrastructure to network social service providers and users will support the social and economic advancement of the region. Investment in training school-age children, youth, and adults to harness the productive uses of information and telecommunications technology will yield the greatest benefits for future generations.

Low-Income Communities in the Information Age: Technology, Development and Community Practice

Dissertation

Considerations for Building a National Broadband Plan

Comments to the FCC, 2009.

This commentary brief to the FCC outlines some of the fundamental components for a broadband plan that generates development and is inclusive of low income populations and places. It also highlights the negative effects (digital destitution) of not addressing the crisis (technology market bottlenecks).

The Constitutional Problems of and Need for Broadband Research

This talk outlines the importance of broadband research to the design of a well structured technology policy plan and the institutional effects of not addressing evolving social problems vis-a-vis the integration of broadband into society's productive functions under conditions of poverty and inequality.

The Constitutional Problems of and Need for Broadband Research

This talk outlines the importance of broadband research and the institutional effects of not intervening in evolving social problems vis-a-vis the integration of technology into the productive functions of society under conditions of inequality and poverty.