Defining Digital Equity Ecosystems

As I shared in a previous post last year, I am writing on book on Digital Equity Ecosystems that will be published by the University of California Press in 2025. As I have been working on the book, I realized that the definition that I’ve been using from my work with Susan Kennedy, published by the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society in 2020, needed to be slightly revised.

Here is the definition of Digital Equity Ecosystems that I will be using for the book.

Digital equity ecosystems are interactions between individuals, populations, communities, and their larger sociotechnical environments that all play a role in shaping the work to advance digital equity as a social, economic, and racial justice goal. (Rhinesmith, 2024)

This definition has also been updated on our Digital Equity Research Center website to reflect the change above.

The main update to this earlier definition centers around the last part of the definition, which seeks to recognize and highlight digital equity not only as a social, economic, and racial justice issue, but also as an important goal for our society to achieve. There are several reasons why this matters and why it has become a central focus of my book.

One reason for this update is that it honors the definition of digital equity that I have been using in several recent reports and publications, which comes from an article by Judge, Puckett, and Cabuk (2004) published in the Journal of Research on Technology in Education. This definition is found below.

Digital equity is a social justice goal of ensuring that all students have access to information and communications technologies for learning regardless of socioeconomic status, physical disability, language, race, gender, or any other characteristics that have been linked with unequal treatment. (p. 383)

This definition of digital equity also recognizes that digital equity, which from my own research I’ve found, seems to have a much longer history of use within the K-12 education field. The phrase digital equity was adopted more broadly in the digital inclusion field only more recently and included on the National Digital Inclusion Alliance’s definitions webpage.

The second reason why I have updated my definition of Digital Equity Ecosystems, to highlight digital equity as a social, economic, and racial justice issue, is because the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes what I still believe to be one of the most important lines in the entire 1,000+ page legal document. The line can be found under SEC. 60303.

It is the sense of Congress that—(5) achieving digital equity is a matter of social and economic justice and is worth pursuing.

Because communities most impacted by digital inequities include poor communities and communities of color, addressing these inequities are essential to advancing racial justice as a goal. Therefore, I have included racial justice in my definition of Digital Equity Ecosystems for the book.

Special Issue on Homelessness and Mobile Media Published

My article, titled “‘It’s one of the most important things we carry for us”: How mobile hotspots support people experiencing homelessness” has been included in the new Special Issue on Homelessness and Mobile Media just published in volume 12, issue 2 of Mobile Media & Communication.

The article, first published last November, presents findings from a pre-COVID-19 pandemic study that I conducted to better understand the Boston Public Library’s mobile Wi-Fi hotspot lending program. Through my qualitative analysis of focus group sessions with public library patrons who checked out the hotspots, I found that “although mobile hotspots provided many benefits for public library patrons in general, these devices facilitated mobile communication with a different sense of urgency for six people experiencing homelessness who also happened to be in romantic relationships.” As I wrote in the abstract,

More concretely, the study found that mobile Wi-Fi hotspots reduced stress and anxiety for unhoused patrons because without the devices, patrons without fixed residences worried they could not be found; that hotspots kept unhoused patrons more connected, and therefore safer, in their tents despite the cold weather and a lack of electricity; and that unhoused patrons were concerned about their devices getting stolen because of their precarious situation. Although the unhoused patrons who participated in this study also shared their recommendations regarding how mobile hotspot lending programs in public libraries could be improved, they also mentioned that the benefits of hotspot availability far outweighed their challenges. The findings have implications for those working to address homelessness, including community-based organizations, government agencies, and policymakers who seek further insights into the positive role that mobile hotspot devices can play in supporting positive health outcomes for individuals and couples experiencing homelessness.

The article is available for purchase on the journal’s website located here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20501579231212061

 

New TechTank Podcast Episode on the Affordable Connectivity Program

TechTank podcast with Nicol Turner Lee, Colin Rhinesmith, and Fallon Wilson

It was an honor to join Dr. Nicol Turner Lee, Senior Fellow, Director of the Center for Technology Innovation at The Brookings Institution, and the host of the Brookings Tech Tank podcast, alongside Dr. Fallon Wilson, Vice President of MMTC and Director of Black Churches for Digital Equity to discuss the upcoming end of the Affordable Connectivity Program and its potential impacts on digital equity efforts nationwide.

Libraries and Digital Equity Coalitions

In their Digital Inclusion Coalition Guidebook, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance has defined a coalition in the following way:

  • “Is a collective organization of organizations (e.g., local governments, libraries, educational institutions, housing authorities, community technology training and network providers, other social service and civic organizations, etc.).
  • Operating in the public realm, with a reasonable degree of transparency about its activities, governance and finances.
  • Function within a collaborative structure (formal or informal), that may include process for decision making, leadership responsibilities, rights and obligations of members, regular meetings, and open process for joining.”

If you work at a library and have been (or would like to be) involved with a coalition working to advance digital equity, please consider sharing your experiences in this 5-10 minute survey below about your library’s experience.

Findings from the study will be shared back with you (if you choose to include your name and email address), as well as in my book on Digital Equity Ecosystems for the University of California Press. Thank you!

Call for Submissions: 20th Anniversary Issue of The Journal of Community Informatics

The Journal of Community Informatics

Call for Submissions: 20th Anniversary Issue of The Journal of Community Informatics

Community informatics (CI) is the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to support community-defined development goals. It is a multidisciplinary field that includes researchers and practitioners from information studies, social work, rural sociology, public policy, urban planning, among other areas. Similar to social informatics, CI considers organizational use of ICTs across digital and physical spaces. However, CI is more concerned with how communities develop the social and technical capacities needed to promote ICT access, adoption, and use. CI projects are as diverse globally as they are locally. A common theme connecting them is community participation in ICTs to promote social action and social change.˟

On October 1, 2004, the first issue of The Journal of Community Informatics was published. It has since remained a free and open access, double-blind peer review journal featuring academic research and practitioner contributions at the intersection of CI research, practice, and policy. A wide range of submissions have been welcome, including research articles, notes from the field, points of view, reports, case studies, and more. As a way to celebrate the past 20 years of the journal, and to open up new avenues for participation, we invite original submissions in these traditional formats, as well as new formats including artistic works such as poetry, audio/video recordings, and visual artwork.

Information for Contributors

We are interested in short paper submissions of 1,500-2,000 words that reflect on any of the topics listed below.

  • The past, present, and future of community informatics
  • Reflections from journal article authors about the impact of their contributions
  • Personal/professional reflections on CI as a field of research and practice
  • Critical reflections on and interrogations of the need for community informatics
  • The role of JoCI and other open access publications in the scholarly communication ecosystem

Contributors should include a 200-300 word abstract that describes their submission. The papers will be non-peer reviewed and will be included as “Points of View” submissions (see Editorial Guidelines). Additional author guidelines can be found here: https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/JoCI/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Important Dates

  • Submissions due: 1 May 2024
  • Publication issue: 1 October 2024


˟ Rhinesmith, C. (2019). Community informatics. In G. Ritzer (Eds.), Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (2nd Ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.