Suchergebnisse

Community technology centers (CTCs) are potentially a critical component in the communication environment of urban communities. They have been investigated extensively as instruments of technology-based public policy and social service capacity-building, yet they have not been subject to research that posits these centers as integral components of larger communication systems essential to civic participation and empowerment. This article describes how communication theory, communication infrastructure theory and community technology centers contribute to solving the inequalities addressed in previous studies of the `digital divide'. The article presents the communication infrastructure theory perspective as a way to reconcile alternative prescriptions for the way in which community technology interventions can lead to positive outcomes for local community-building and social mobility enhancement. This project re-situates the CTC as a communication-centric phenomenon, focusing on the linkages between the community-building capacity of CTCs and their role as an integral component of a community's communication infrastructure.

The relationship between online and offline social ties is studied in seven Los Angeles ethnically marked residential areas. Contrary to visions proposing a zero-sum game between the two, the authors advance a "the more, the more" approach to online social ties. A higher level of belonging to real communities translates into a higher propensity for interaction online. This approach is informed by a social shaping of technology perspective, which proposes that strong anchoring to offline social and cultural groups links cyberspace to people's local communities. Results of a logistic regression analysis indicate that the chances of making a friend online increase by 7% for each belonging index unit and by 32% for each neighbor known well enough to talk to about a personal problem. Belonging is captured through an index measure, combining eight items concerning objective and subjective involvement in residential community. Ethnic differences are less pronounced than expected. However, Asian respondents, particularly those of Korean descent, are more likely to form online ties than mainstream White respondents. Focus group data suggest that online ties are established with people of the same ethnicity.

Newspaper readership often has been studied with the aim of developing demographic profiles of readers. This paper considers the goals readers are pursuing and the importance of media system dependency relations in explaining the amount of time spent reading newspapers. In a regression analysis, we find that dependency relations for social and self understanding explain a considerable amount of variance in readership beyond the variance explained by demographic variables. Differences in the dependency relations between more and less affluent readers, as well as between male and female readers, are noted as well.

This article develops and tests a communication infrastructure model of belonging among dwellers of urban residential environments. The concept of a communication infrastructure—a storytelling system set in its communication action context—is discussed. Storytelling neighborhood, the communication process through which neighborhood discussion transforms people from occupants of a house to members of a neighborhood, is proposed as an essential component of people's paths to belonging, an attachment to a residential area that is evidenced in everyday exchange behaviors. A multimethod research design is employed to study seven residential areas in Los Angeles through the use of multilingual data collection to discover the relevant factors that determine belonging in new and old immigrant communities. A communication infrastructure model that posits storytelling as an intervening process between structural location and belonging is proposed and tested. Overall, the most important factor in creating belonging was found to be an active and integrated storytelling system that involves residents, community organizations, and local media. The diagnostic potentials of the communication infrastructure approach and the policy implications of the findings are discussed.

Imagining urban space as being comfortable or fearful is studied as an effect of people's connections to their residential area communication infrastructure. Geographic Information System (GIS) modeling and spatial-statistical methods are used to process 215 mental maps obtained from respondents to a multilingual survey of seven ethnically marked residential communities of Los Angeles. Spatial-statistical analyses reveal that fear perceptions of Los Angeles urban space are not associated with commonly expected causes of fear, such as high crime victimization likelihood. The main source of discomfort seems to be presence of non-White and non-Asian populations. Respondents more strongly connected to television and interpersonal communication channels are relatively more fearful of these populations than those less strongly connected. Theoretical, methodological, and community-building policy implications are discussed.

Questions about who watched "Roots: The Next Generation" & with what effect are examined through separate sample pre- & posttest surveys of 2 eastern Wash cities, which obtained 500 pretest & 1,199 posttest responses from Wash's Tri-Cities, & 142 pretest & 142 posttest responses from Yakima. Evidence for selectivity in viewership of "Roots II" is obtained. Multivariate analysis shows that a general dimension of egalitarianism distinguished viewers from nonviewers, even when various personal & demographic variables were controlled. Tests for interactions between level of viewing & pretest-posttest showed no evidence of a significant effect of "Roots II" on egalitarianism. Modified HA.

Abstract
How can the goal of the National Broadband Plan (NBP) to alleviate social disparities be achieved? Katz, Matsaganis and Ball-Rokeach believe that local ethnic media, working with local anchor institutions, are the key to ethnic and minority broadband adoption and social inclusion. The authors illustrate this by showing how ethnic media can help realize the NBP's goals generally, and specifically with regard to developing a National Digital Literacy Corps and an online Digital Literacy Portal. Such media are, however, threatened by ongoing media ownership concentration and the defunding of public media. Sustaining such media, they argue, requires proactive public policy: inclusion in the E-Rate program; help with going online; development grant opportunities; antitrust enforcement; adoption of the NBP's call for a National Digital Literacy Corps and an online Digital Literacy Portal; and more research on the content and contextual features of ethnic media and on how they compare with "mainstream" media. This will accelerate achievement of the NBP's goals.