project...

I am a bit late with this...and I still can't decide what I want to do...picking topics is always the most difficult part for me--too many things I want to learn.
1) Review/Research Project (either way?)-- I am curious about how much is known about the accessibility (e.g. relating to Section 508) of websites that may be considered "necessary" in a "basic access" way of thinking. It may be the easiest to focus on government websites but I really want to know what important sites been studied in this area.
2) Research Project-- Studying internet usage differences between nations, looking at the nations political, socio-cultural, technological, monetary and governmental issues/status. The article Social Inequalities by Pippa Norris dealt with these idea. I would interested in studying Sweden, United States, and Portugal (as the highest and lowest growth of internet between 1996-1999) but I should get more current information first. Maybe I would need to get even more specific?
3) Review Project-- I am wondering what studies have been done on identity representation and probably chatrooms, but maybe blogs would work also. Is there scholarship being done about this and how would they go about finding out how people are representing themselves versus what the "reality" seems to be.

White privalege.

I apologize if this is unrelated but I couldn't help thinking about it when reading the Wilson interview and then again in the 'white privilege' article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/03/business/03hedge.html
There was an article in the times yesterday about a Wall Street manager of hedge funds who brings in $350 million a year and spends it on art. Apparently he has great taste and sets the market trends on what art can fetch. So when I was reading the Wilson article and how a entire sixth grade class was removed from public school to private, guaranteed college scholarships and subsequently flourished, I couldn’t help thinking how misplaced this man’s (as illustrative of many of us) money is. If he would forgo buying just one piece of art work he could probably turn a few public schools into high quality institutions and still get everyone through college. Now, of course, it is easy to pick on him for being rich but not so easy to identify ourselves as having privilege that at least kept most of us out of inner city public schools. I don’t think that is particularly related to the topic at hand but take it as you will.

many things...

Many things got brought up for me by the articles this week...maybe that will make me talk more in class. For now, I will just ask one question that is mostly coming from the Wilson and Stanley articles. In the job market, how much does it actually matter if you have computer skills? Does it depend on the job market (e.g. inner city, high unemployment rate, general SES, farm town)? It obviously depends somewhat on the job--but is it becoming necessary for most jobs? I'm wondering because I tend to think it is not a big deal whether or not someone has a computer, but-- if knowledge of computers/internet really has a direct correlation to getting jobs then I think at least the knowledge is very important...especially in inner cities.

Project

A review project on the topic of information access for the disabled. Specifically I will focus on the visually impaired in relation to internet use, perhaps touching upon other information sources only for comparison. I will describe how they use the internet, what it means for a website to be accessible to the visually impaired and how wide spread adherence to the protocols of accessibility are.
Some resources that I have found pertaining to this topic are:

Shepherd, Ritchenya A. 1999. Net rights for the disabled? National Law Journal. pg B8.

Loiacono, Eleanor T. 2004. Cyberspace: Web accessibility and corporate America. Communications of the ACM. Vol 47 (12).

Coonin, Bryna. 2002. Establishing accessibility for e-journals: a suggested approach. Library Hi Tech. Vol. 20 (2), pg. 207.

McCord, Sarah K., Linda Frederiksen, and Nicole Campbell. An accessibility assessment of selected Web-based health information resources. 2002. Library Hi Tech. Vol. 20 (2), p 188.

Information access for people with disabilities. 2004. Library Technology Reports. Vol. 40 (3), p 10.

Who aren’t you serving digitally? 2004. Library Technology Reports. Vol. 40 (3), pg 6.

Loiacono, Eleanor and Scott McCoy. Web site accessibility: an online sector analysis. 2004. Information Technology & People. Vol. 17 (1), p 87-101.

Schneider, Staci. An ethical minefield. 2003. Training. Vol, 40 (9), p 62.

Fry, Alex. Equality for the disabled. 2002. Intermedia. Vol. 30 (5), p. 43.

Zeldman, Jeffrey. 2002. Design accessible sites. Macworld. Vol. 19 (8), p. 86.

Marsan, Carolyn Duffy. 2002. Macromedia opens ‘Net accessibility.’ Network World. Vol. 19 (10). p. 35.

Byerley, Suzanne L. and Mary Beth Chambers. Accessibility of web-based library databases: the vendors’ perspectives. 2003. Library Hi Tech. Vol. 21 (3), p. 347.

Davis, Joel J. The accessibility divide: the visually-impaired and access to online news. 2003. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. Vol. 47 (3), p. 474.




Another paper topic is that of medical information accessibility. I will focus my review (perhaps it will turn into a policy project) on scholarly research and communication which is funded by government agencies and then are not made available to the public. This paper will describe grant funding, research, and publication procedures that go on in the medical field. I will then explore who has access to these articles, who doesn’t and why access is limited and to whom. I will hopefully also examine the information seeking behaviors of those doing medical research without full access to these scholarly works. The policy project component might evolve from the growing movement in open-access scholarly publishing through mediums such as PLoS—Medicine. Perhaps all government funded research should be made available to the public through such a publication medium? Should the policies of large universities such as this one change the policy of publication to encourage open-access publishing?

Some papers that may be of use on this paper follow:

Kleinke, J.D. 2002. Vaporware.com: the failed promise of the health care internet. Health Affairs Chevy Chase. Vol. 19 (6), p. 57-71.

Value of the computer

In Beyond Access:Psychosocial Barriers to Computer Literacy, Stanley concludes,"... computer technology simply has not yet provided some low-income people with a compelling reason to make ownership a priority." (p.410). From this article we see that other devices (ie VCRs, CD players, cell phones, big-screen tvs, etc.) were purchased in low-income homes. Some of these devices require a certain about to knowledge to operate. Frankly, I accidently changed my ringer tones on my cell phone and can't figure out how to change it back... So if a person can program a phone, operate a DVD player, etc., I think s/he also has the capacity to learn the basics of a computer. Isn't computer technology in these items as well? I guess my question is if some low-income people already use computer technology, why is the computer itself not valued?

Luca's Final Project Proposals

1) review project about the actual debate about the e-government in Europe.

2) review project about the actual debate about the privacy and treatment of data in Europe.

For both I intend to stress which is the actual policy suggested by the European Union.

I'm proud of my mom

"White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" made me think a lot. Very interesting. I've never thought for example about the racial relevance of the color of bandages... however, I'm not here to talk of racial issues...

This article combined with "Psycosocial Barriers" sticked a question in my mind. There is some kind of hidden "racism" towards computer non-users? I mean... of course there is in work field, but I'm referring to social interaction. Is someone who doesn't know how to operate a computer really mocked by expert users? or are they considered ignorant by the rest of the e-society? Is the social pressure to learn how to use a computer that people prefear to say they are going to buy one? or declaring they don't want to use it instead of appear dumb users?
These are dumb questions, I know, the article gives back the answers... but I'm just amazed... until now I never really thought about all the difficulties and social pressure that a newbie could encounter in starting to use a computer, even if I recently saw my mom learning it. And I mock her all the time because it takes her five minutes to type a single sentence when she talks to me with instant messanging programs.
This week I'll tell her that I'm proud she learned.

The Promised Land

I like the two pieces by William Julius Wilson the best, although I did send the McIntosh article to some friends.

Think of all the work that must be done to renew the urban infrastructure across the nation. That's the sort of public sector employment that might break the cycle of the underclass in this country. In and of itself, it's not a long-term solution, but the 'full employment' for which Wilson advocates must come somehow. I agree with him that the private sector will not reach out to these groups to employ them.

Go to any inner city and observe the crumbling steets and sidewalks, the inadequate school buidings, the poorly kept parks, the abandoned industrial parks and warehouses from another economic age. How do they reinforce all of the negatives of being poor in America? How can we promote the public good by enlisting the talents and aspirations of our urban communities to redesign, revitalize and renew our cities? We know true rebirth requires far more than simply a stadium or a WalMart. We must invest in the people who have the most to gain the new infrastructure.

Clinton talked about it. So far, anyway, Bush has ignored it. We must support and initiate it.

Kelly's Project Ideas

1. Research project on Internet accessibility for the physically disabled. Can they get hardware and software that meets their needs? How about finding content that is formatted to be accessible to them? Are webmasters keeping them in mind as the broadband revolution makes more elaborate webpages possible?

2. Policy project on how to educate under-served populations on the usefulness of the Internet. We have seen in our readings that it's not just lack of money or computer skills that keeps people offline, but the belief that there's no point in their bothering with the Internet. Some people may genuinely have no reason to go online, but many just have mistaken ideas as to what the Internet is like. Providing public computers with Internet access is straightforward enough, but what is the best way let people know about all the things they could do once they're online?

Fear of Computers

I was most intrigued with the findings in the Psychosocial Barriers to Computer Literacy study that said “three out of four new computer users retrospectively described how the thought of learning computers provoked severe anxiety” and “regardless of cost or ease of access, fear of irreparably damaging or “blowing up” the computer kept them from acting on any desires they might have to learn this technology”. I would like to know where 75% of the respondents are learning that computers are fragile and difficult to navigate. Not knowing how to use the computer is one thing, but to have a belief that they’ll physically hurt the computer is very interesting. The CTC’s mentioned in the article are a good starting point for access but they can’t address the anxiety people experience by simply looking at a computer. Furthermore, is this only related to lower income?

Final Project Ideas

My first idea was to do a research paper on whether senior citizens were well represented on the internet. My position would be that they are not, and that is the reason that they are not logging on. Now, to be honest, I really haven't done any research on this yet, so my position might change.

My second idea is to do a research or review paper stating that computer literacy is already a necessity for a good paying job. Once again, I really have no idea if I'll find the information that I need for this topic. And I would have to define the parameters on what exactly a "good paying job" is.

In an unrelated story

While reading this weeks articles an old memory resurfaced. Does anyone recall the old commercials they used to show on Saturday mornings that had cartoon animals telling us how to do certain things on the computer? This was around the mid to late 80's as I recall, so most of the information in the commercials was how to use word processing software. I can't remember if these were PSA's or who put them out (possibly Apple or some computer company) but they were obviously aimed at children. My question is why did they stopped these commercials and why don't they make any for an older audience? This would help those who are afraid of "blowing up" their untouched computers.

Diffusion and Class

The Stanley article, "Psychosocial Barriers", was by far the best article this week. It brought several threads together of what we've been discussing. In breaking down patterns of ownership and use, Stanley writes that complex reasons of fear, identity, and relevance actually underlie the obvious non-ownership reasons for infogaps. And she also mentions diffusion. Some have argued that diffusion of innovations are driven by the desire for new information alone, all other things equal, but others have argued that microcultures of one's economy, class, education, and relative power are the largest drivers of innovation use. If I think about the almost "instant diffusion" of computers among certain groups of people, what can best account for this: desire for new information or the cultural complex? I have to conclude that it comes down to cultural relevance: if any innovation, no matter how seductive, is not relevant to me, I do not feel the desire to adopt it.

For example, iPods have been around for a few years, and even my own dad has one. It's quite a diffusion. Although I never drive without my radio blasting, or work late at night without CDs playing, I find no relevance in the MOBILITY of an iPod. Without that relevance, I don't adopt the technology. I can extend this to Stanley's conclusion that awareness and relevance motivations could do more to bridge the CTC gap (414) than just ownership of hardware. In other words, it's often a one-to-one personal exchange that brings relevance to computer use. If William Julius Wilson (6) stressed that diffusion of human understanding through everyday partnerships could close class-race gaps, could it be that one-to-one human outreach to potential users would be more effective in exploring relevance than one-size-fits-all computer classes?

How old is too old?

"Two out of five respondents also perceived computers as something for children or those well adcanced in their professional careers. Thus, they perceived themselves as being "too old" to learn computers." (pg. 213) This was written in the article Beyond Access: Psychosocial Barriers to Computer Literacy. The article continued to state that "surprisingly, even respondents as young as 32 year of age also said they feared being too old to learn computers." I found this fact to be extremely interesting. My great grandfather's brother at the age of 65 decided to go back to college to take some classes to simply just learn more information. He continued to do this until he was 73. Obviously when he was growing up there wasn't the same use of computers as there is today, but since he was taking classes, he also learned about computers and is very well adapt to them today in his 80's. Not everyone takes the same approach to learning that he did; however, should a 65 year old be considered too old to learn how to use computers? Should a 32 year old???? I don't think that there should be an age segregation of how old a person can be to learn about computers, people should be feel free to use the sources given to them without feeling weird doing so.

Need to swap discussion date for Apr 8

Class: I need to swap my discussion date of Apr 8 "Divides of wealth, location, and consumption" with another week's discussion. I will be in Denver at a conference. Any takers?

Topics

My first thought was to look at the disparities present in academic libraries. I've done some searching, however, and so far I don't find much. There was some material about HBC's (Historically Black Colleges) and underfunded libraries. I would also like to see differences between state schools, tech schools, private schools, and smaller liberal arts colleges, but so far I haven't seen much.



My other idea would be to look at differences among teenagers by demographic groups and by education. This might include personal digital devices other than computers, such as Ipods, PDA's, cell phones, and satellite radio. I haven't looked into the available literature on this topic, but I imagine it might be hard to find statistical comparisions amongst the sea of consumer reviews and technical update articles.

Proposal Projects

#1: Review project; inspired by the article sent out about doctors use of emails for client appointments rather than the patient coming in for certain reasons. I have thought about this sort of concept before (as well as the use of pharmacies online) and finding information about this topic would be extremely interesting. In this day and age, I'll be able to find information supporting doctors emailing and opposing. I'm not sure which will prevail in my paper yet if this topic is chosen.

#2: Policy project; I think that the work with programs for the computer or other technologies for handicapped individuals. My cousin is handicapped, and I believe there there are more programs that can be created for less cost to the purchaser. (This could fit into the other project categories, it's just a thought).

Stereotyping easier online?

The "Reading Race Online" made an interesting point about racial stereotyping online. Although it would seem that there should be little racial stereotyping when we can't see the people we're interacting with, Burkhalter suggests that there may actually be more racial stereotyping for that same reason! It's easy to assume that another person online must be of the race stereotypically associated with their views or behavior. Even if they claim otherwise there's no need to take their word for it, since people can lie about such things over the Internet.

This is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure if things often happen that way online. I suspect that white Internet users tend to just assume that everyone else online is white too, unless they explicitly say otherwise. I don't think I've ever seen anyone's claims about their own race challenged in an online community.

Maybe I'm wrong, though. I do know that in online communities people sometimes make incorrect assumptions about what sex other users are, and this does tend to be associated with gender stereotypes. Someone who seems coolly logical must be a man, someone who seems overly emotional must be a woman, etc.

Digital Rx: Take Two Aspirins and E-Mail Me in the Morning (NYT)

A NYT article today talks about a telemedecine phenomenon that might be heralding a digital set of interactions which replace older in-person interactions -- much like ATMs and bank tellers:

Doctors may no longer make house calls, but they are answering patient e-mail messages - and being paid for it.

In a move to improve efficiency and control costs, health plans and medical groups around the country are now beginning to pay doctors to reply by e-mail, just as they pay for office visits. While some computer-literate doctors have been using e-mail to communicate informally with patients for years, most have never been paid for that service.

Brian Settlemoir, 39, an accountant in Folsom, Calif., recently sent an e-mail message to his doctor at the Creekside Medical Group to ask if it was time to reduce the dosage of a medicine after his cholesterol level dropped. The prompt answer was "not yet."

"I'm sitting at work," Mr. Settlemoir said. "I've got e-mail open anyway. It's much easier than calling and getting voice-mail prompts and sitting on hold. It's very valuable to me."

Blue Shield of California pays his doctor $25 for each online exchange, the same as it pays for an office visit. Some insurers pay a bit less for e-mailing, and patients in some health plans are charged a $5 or $10 co-payment that is billed to their credit card and relayed to the doctor.

Full article: The New York Times > Technology > Digital Rx: Take Two Aspirins and E-Mail Me in the Morning

project proposals

1. Research project on the E-Rate. The E-rate has been mentioned in several of the class readings and is a government program that provides discounted access to the Internet and computers for schools and libraries across the nation. Originally set up after the passing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the E-rate program has been running for almost ten years. I plan on researching it’s initial goals and why this program had not fully bridged the digital divide.

2. Research project on wireless Internet access. It seems clear to me that wireless access is the next step in Internet technology and something that has the potential to help remedy the digital divide. Several cities around the country are looking into offering citywide wireless access, including Madison, but Philadelphia is garnering the most press and I will focus on that city’s efforts to offer Internet access, the positive impact it will have on the digital divide in Philadelphia and this technology-driven nation.