Internet Use and the Concentration of Disadvantage: Glocalization and the Urban Underclass
Internet Use and the Concentration of Disadvantage: Glocalization and the Urban Underclass
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DOI：
10.1177/0002764209356244
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发表时间：
2010-04-01
影响因子：
3.2
通讯作者：
Hampton, Keith N.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hampton, Keith N.
本文认为，有关数字不平等的文献--关注个人特征、行为和结果--忽视了社会和公民不平等再现背景下的变化。这一遗漏是由于未能探讨生态背景在数字鸿沟研究中的作用以及通信在集体效能研究中的作用。社会凝聚力，以及对邻里层面非正式社会控制的期望，是生态环境和媒体环境的函数。那些生活在先前的媒体，包括电话和面对面接触，无法克服集体行动的背景障碍的人，即生活在集中的弱势地区的人，现在可能由于当地互联网的使用而减少了社会和公民的不平等。这篇文章是基于一个为期3年的自然主义实验的结果，该实验研究了互联网在社区一级的通信使用。它提出了一个新的措施，集体效能的地方网络措施或感知凝聚力的基础上直接观察的沟通做法。该分析包括一个与采用互联网作为当地信息交换手段的社区相关的生态特征模型，并提供了优势地区与极端贫困，失业和种族隔离地区之间交换的电子信息内容的比较。调查结果表明，尽管互联网在已经很可能很高的领域支持社会和公民参与，但它也在极端不利的情况下提供参与。
This article argues that the literature on digital inequality-in its focus on individual characteristics, behaviors, and outcomes-has overlooked change within the context of where social and civic inequalities are reproduced. This omission is the result of a failure to explore the role of ecological context within the study of the digital divide and the role of communication within the study of collective efficacy. Social cohesion, and an expectation for informal social control at the neighborhood level, is a function of both ecological context and media context. Those embedded within settings where prior media, including the telephone and face-to-face contact, could not overcome contextual barriers to collective action, namely within areas of concentrated disadvantage; may now, as a result of local Internet use, experience reduced social and civic inequality. This article is based on the results of a 3-year naturalistic experiment that examined the use of the Internet for communication at the neighborhood level. It proposes a new measure of collective efficacy-in place of network measures or perceived cohesion-based on the direct observation of communication practices. The analysis includes a model of the ecological characteristics associated with neighborhoods that adopted the Internet as a means of local information exchange, and it provides a comparison of the content of electronic messages exchanged within areas of advantage and those of extreme poverty, unemployment, and racial segregation. Findings suggest that as much as the Internet supports social and civic engagement in areas where it is already likely to be high, it also affords engagement within contexts of extreme disadvantage.