Determinants of broadband access and affordability: An analysis of a community survey on the digital divide
Determinants of broadband access and affordability: An analysis of a community survey on the digital divide
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DOI：
10.1016/j.cities.2020.102904
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发表时间：
2020-11-01
期刊：
影响因子：
6.7
通讯作者：
Sharma, Bonita
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Reddick, Christopher G.;Enriquez, Roger;Sharma, Bonita
家庭宽带接入是必要的，特别是在2019冠状病毒病大流行以来。网络连接对学校、工作、家庭和朋友来说越来越重要。现有的关于宽带实施的国际研究已经研究了其采用模式，重点是农村/城市数字鸿沟。本文以美国人口第七大城市为例，探讨了数字鸿沟；圣安东尼奥是一个以少数民族为主的城市，超过一半的人是西班牙裔。本文重点讨论了推动宽带普及的五个关键可负担性因素。研究人员测试了社会排斥理论，贫困和社会边缘化的结构性方面，以确定其对宽带接入的潜在影响。作者用英语和西班牙语进行了一项调查，以了解更多影响宽带数字鸿沟的可负担性因素。通过我们的分析，我们发现有证据表明，在本案例研究中，地理差异、基于利润的歧视、技术部署成本和社会经济因素这四个因素在数字鸿沟中发挥了作用。本研究的结果表明，数字鸿沟不仅仅是农村/城市数字鸿沟，也可能发生在城市内部。这在城市内的低收入地区尤其明显，因为他们的宽带采用率要低得多。这项研究的结果表明，密切关注边缘化群体的社会排斥问题和城市内宽带接入的可负担性问题非常重要。
Broadband access in the home is a necessity, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Increasingly, connectivity is of vital importance for school, work, family, and friends. Existing international research on the implementation of broadband has studied its adoption patterns with a focus on the rural/urban digital divide. This paper explores the digital divide in a case study of the seventh largest city, by population, in the United States; San Antonio is a majority-minority city where over half of the people are Hispanic. This paper focuses on the five key affordability factors that drive broadband adoption. Researchers test social exclusion theory, the structural facets of poverty and social marginality to ascertain its potential impact on broadband access. The authors conducted a survey in both English and Spanish to learn more about the affordability factors that influence the broadband digital divide. Through our analysis, we found evidence that four of the factors (geographical disparities, profit-based discrimination, technology deployment cost, and socio-economic factors) played a role in the digital divide in this case study. The results of this study demonstrate that the digital divide is not exclusively a rural/urban digital divide, but can also occur in an intra-city context. This is especially evident in low-income areas within the city because they have substantially lower broadband adoption rates. The results of this study demonstrate the importance of looking closely at issues of social exclusion of marginalized groups and the affordability of broadband access intra-city.