Electronic Communities

The recent implementation of a community electronic network is examined. The network is intended to help the rural community of Grand Rapids in northern Minnesota keep up with global technological progress. The present study is a baseline examination of social, political, and technological conditions in the community. Changes in social capital are hypothesized as a result of the wide-area network. Focus groups and survey research are used to assess inequalities in knowledge, access, and use of technologies as they relate to underlying inequalities in socioeconomic status and social capital. Results suggest that initial adoption of technological advances occurs among those with greater resources. Those with resources of social, but not necessarily economic, capital follow suit once an opportunity arises. Among the implications of the study's findings is that citizens lacking such resources need to be actively recruited into using the new technology as a means to bolster their existing resources.

[1]  Rudi Volti,et al.  America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940 , 1992 .

[2]  S. Fiske,et al.  Social Psychology , 2019, Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences.

[3]  R. Putnam.  Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital , 1995, The City Reader.

[4]  J. Walther.  Interpersonal Effects in Computer-Mediated Interaction , 1992 .

[5]  Helen Z. Margetts,et al.  Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices , 1993, J. Inf. Technol..

[6]  C. Blumer,et al.  The Development of the Attitudes toward Computer Usage Scale , 1987 .

[7]  R. Kling.  Synergies and Competition Between Life in Cyberspace and Face-to-Face Communities , 1996 .

[8]  R. Putnam.  Tuning In, Tuning Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America , 1995, PS: Political Science & Politics.

[9]  Robert M. Rubinyi.  Computers and Community: The Organizational Impact , 1989 .

[10]  Bruce Morton,et al.  Universal access to e-mail: Feasibility and societal implications , 1996 .

[11]  Gary R. Orren,et al.  The Electronic Commonwealth: The Impact of New Media Technologies on Democratic Politics , 1990 .

[12]  Janet Mancini Billson,et al.  Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research , 1989 .

[13]  A. Calabrese,et al.  Prospects for electronic democracy in the United States: rethinking communication and social policy , 1996 .

[14]  Joseph Schmitz,et al.  The PEN Project in Santa Monica: Interactive Communication, Equality, and Political Action , 1994, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[15]  Dimitrina S. Dimitrova,et al.  Computer Networks as Social Networks: Collaborative Work, Telework, and Virtual Community , 1996 .

[16]  Marcia A. B. Delcourt,et al.  Construct and Criterion-Related Validity of the Adult-Attitudes toward Computers Survey for a Sample of Professional Nurses , 1992 .

[17]  W. Galston.  Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity , 1996 .

[18]  K. Bachrach,et al.  Coping with a community stressor: the threat of a hazardous waste facility. , 1985, Journal of health and social behavior.

[19]  Geoffry S. Howard,et al.  Computer Anxiety and Computer Attitudes: An Investigation of Construct and Predictive Validity Issues , 1990 .

[20]  R. Putnam,et al.  Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. , 1994 .

[21]  Clifford Stoll,et al.  Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway , 1995 .

[22]  Karen D. Loch,et al.  Evaluating ethical decision making and computer use , 1996, CACM.

[23]  Gordon W. Waugh,et al.  Assessing Computer Anxiety , 1989, Psychological reports.

[24]  Kenneth L. Kraemer,et al.  Information Infrastructure, National Policy, and Global Competitiveness. , 1995 .

[25]  S. Keeter,et al.  What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters , 1996 .

[26]  W. Rahn,et al.  Individual-Level Evidence for the Causes and Consequences of Social Capital , 1997 .

[27]  Michael J. Sandel.  Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy , 1996 .

[28]  P. Zimbardo.  The human choice: Individuation, reason, and order versus deindividuation, impulse, and chaos. , 1969 .

[29]  J. Teachman,et al.  Social Capital and Dropping Out of School Early. , 1996 .

[30]  Henry E. Brady,et al.  Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics , 1996 .

[31]  W. Dutton,et al.  The Politics of Citizen Access Technology: The Development of Public Information Utilities in Four Cities , 1992 .

[32]  Michael X. Delli Carpini,et al.  The Electronic Commonwealth: The Impact of New Media Technologies on Democratic Politics. , 1989 .

[33]  R. Dagger.  Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism , 1997 .

[34]  J. Coleman,et al.  Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital , 1988, American Journal of Sociology.

[35]  T. H. Marshall,et al.  Citizenship and Social Class: And Other Essays. , 1951 .

[36]  Dorothy Bennett,et al.  Technology and Gender: Differences In Masculine and Feminine Views , 1997 .

[37]  Glenn C. Loury,et al.  A Dynamic Theory of Racial Income Differences , 1976 .

[38]  R. Heinssen,et al.  Assessing computer anxiety: Development and validation of the Computer Anxiety Rating Scale , 1987 .

[39]  Arthur P. Molella,et al.  The Social Impact of the Telephone , 1978 .

[40]  R. Rice,et al.  Electronic Emotion , 1987 .

[41]  Mary E. Virnoche,et al.  The Seamless Web and Communications Equity: The Shaping of a Community Network , 1998 .

[42]  William Wresch.  Disconnected: Haves and Have-Nots in the Information Age , 1996 .

[43]  A. Stewart,et al.  Meanings of political participation among black and white women: political identity and social responsibility. , 1996, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[44]  E. Rogers,et al.  The PEN Project in Santa Monica: Interactive Communication, Equality, and Political Action , 1994, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[45]  Robert LaRose,et al.  Who Uses Information Technologies in Rural America , 1989 .

[46]  John V. Pavlik,et al.  The people's right to know : media, democracy, and the information highway , 1994 .

[47]  J. Zaller,et al.  The American Ethos: Public Attitudes Toward Capitalism and Democracy , 1984 .

[48]  Tom W. Smith.  Factors Relating to Misanthropy in Contemporary American Society , 1997 .

[49]  Anne Beamish,et al.  Communities on-line : community-based computer networks , 1995 .

[50]  R. Oliver,et al.  Culture and Society, 1780-1950 , 1959 .

[51]  Andrew S. Chirwa,et al.  Computer Attitude Scale , 1992 .

[52]  Richard Groper.  Electronic Mail and the Reinvigoration of American Democracy , 1996 .

[53]  George Gerbner,et al.  The information gap : how computers and other new communication technologies affect the social distribution of power , 1989 .

[54]  F. Fukuyama.  Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity Penguin London , 1995 .

[55]  Graham Murdock,et al.  Information Poverty and Political Inequality: Citizenship in the Age of Privatized Communications , 1989 .

[56]  L. Milbrath.  Political Participation: How and Why Do People Get Involved in Politics? , 1966 .

[57]  T. H. Marshall,et al.  Citizenship and Social Class , 1987 .

[58]  S. R. Hiltz,et al.  Experiments in group decision making: Communication process and outcome in face-to-face versus computerized conferences. , 1986 .

[59]  B. Allen.  Gender and computer-mediated communication , 1995 .