Next Generation Access in a Rural Community Context: An Innovation Analysis

This thesis explores how to resolve the digital divide in Wales. This is important because access to advanced broadband is considered an essential requirement, particularly post-COVID19. UK Government is advocating next generation access (NGA) to capitalise on Industry 4.0. However, the financial costs and complexities of connecting the final few rural areas is a persisting problem area. Hence, this thesis explores new innovative approaches to provide NGA (product) to a final few (market). Studies revealed superfast broadband in remote rural communities has four-fold human, social, environmental and financial capital benefits. Analysis resulted in a new conceptual framework which combines neo-endogenous theories alongside a four-fold capital model to characterise the complex ecosystem. Previous literature focused on either supply or demand, but few studies had investigated both together at the local level. Human & social capital were identified as critical success factors in community-led initiatives, thus providing a theoretical underpinning for this thesis. This study employed a novel mutual business approach utilising the Hybrid Value System (HVS) as an ecosystem connecting the core assets of several stakeholders. Furthermore, the World Bank Social Capital Assessment Tool was modified to investigate social capital fertility to enhance investment. Henceforth, a qualitative multi-method and in-depth intrinsic case study was used to explore the ecosystem. The contribution to knowledge is how to engage multi-stakeholder and multi-capital analysis to resolve the problem area. The results identified human capital productivity, social capital collective action, and shared financial capital are required at the local level to reach the final few. The mutual business paradigm challenges all stakeholders to value non-financial capital alongside financial capital for problem area resolution. This thesis concludes that HVS methodology coupled with complex ecosystem-network visualisation techniques, provide academics, management and government policy makers with practical tools to value four-fold capital resources and bridge the digital divide

Digital Learning in the Wild: Re-Imagining New Ruralism, Digital Equity, and Deficit Discourses through the Thirdspace

abstract: Digital media is becoming increasingly important to learning in today’s changing times. At the same time, digital technologies and related digital skills are unevenly distributed. Further, deficit-based notions of this digital divide define the public’s educational paradigm. Against this backdrop, I forayed into the social reality of one rural Americana to examine digital learning in the wild. The larger purpose of this dissertation was to spatialize understandings of rural life and pervasive social ills therein, in order to rethink digital equity, such that we dismantle deficit thinking, problematize new ruralism, and re-imagine more just rural geographies. Under a Thirdspace understanding of space as dynamic, relational, and agentive (Soja, 1996), I examined how digital learning is caught up spatially to position the rural struggle over geography amid the ‘Right to the City’ rhetoric (Lefebvre, 1968). In response to this limiting and urban-centric rhetoric, I contest digital inequity as a spatial issue of justice in rural areas. After exploring how digital learning opportunities are distributed at state and local levels, I geo-ethnographically explored digital use to story how families across socio-economic spaces were utilizing digital tools. Last, because ineffective and deficit-based models of understanding erupt from blaming the oppressed for their own self-made oppression, or framing problems (e.g., digital inequity) as solely human-centered, I drew in posthumanist Latourian (2005) social cartographies of Thirdspace. From this, I re-imagined educational equity within rural space to recast digital equity not in terms of the “haves and have nots” but as an account of mutually transformative socio-technical agency. Last, I pay the price of criticism by suggesting possible actions and solutions to the social ills denounced throughout this dissertation.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Learning, Literacies and Technologies 201

Rural Governance in the UK

This book provides a multidisciplinary analysis of rural society in a post-Brexit UK by examining the emergence of new environmental and rural policies and the implications of this transition for rural communities. Through the Common Agricultural Policy, Common Fisheries Policy, the Birds and Habitats Directives, the Water Framework Directive and a myriad of other legislations and institutions, the EU has had a deciding role in how the UK’s rural environment is governed. Disentangling this policy legacy is a complex process and offers both opportunities and challenges for policy makers, institutions, organisations and stakeholders across the UK as they strive to create appropriate new governance structures. With the Agriculture Bill, the 25-Year Environment Plan and the founding of the Office of Environmental Protection, the UK government has provided at least a degree of clarity on the future direction of environmental governance, but much remains uncertain, not least how this is engaged with by different stakeholders. While Brexit is the lens through which rural policy and sustainability are interrogated, this collection demonstrates the underpinning features of rural policy and society, identifying opportunities for addressing deep-seated policy weaknesses thereby creating a more sustainable and equitable rural society. This book brings together academics, established and early career, to discuss the impact of Brexit on rural environmental governance and on the wider sustainability of rural society, relating to three overall themes: rural governance, sustainable land use, and sustainable rural communities. In doing so, it considers sectors beyond agriculture, paying attention to social relations, community infrastructure, the environment, rural development and broader issues of land use. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of rural development, rural entrepreneurship, rural digital inclusion, environmental policy, sustainable development, land use, agrarian studies and environmental geography

Strategies Information and Communication Technology Managers Use to Build Employee Competencies

The World Economic Forum (WEF) found that Botswana\u27s information and communication technology (ICT) networked readiness index (NRI) had declined from position 89 in 2012 to 104 in 2015. A decline in Botswana\u27s ICT NRI resulted in a modest gross domestic product (GDP) growth increasing from 4.2% in 2012 to 5.0% in 2015. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies ICT service provider managers use to build employee competencies to address ICT infrastructure performance deficiencies. The target population for this study consisted of over 120 managers from 2 ICT service providers located in Gaborone and Francistown in Botswana. The conceptual framework for this study was information technology (IT) competency model. Face-to-face interviews with 15 managers and a review of 12 company documents were gathered and all interpretations from the data were subjected to member checking to ensure the trustworthiness of the study findings. The thematic analyses of participants\u27 interviews and company documents resulted in the emergence of 3 common themes: developing professional employee competencies through training, promoting knowledge acquisition and skills transfer, and developing budgets for funding the development of employee competencies. Participants cited training and professional development as a reason for ICT infrastructure performance deficiencies. Social implications from this study include developing strategies business managers can use to build employee competencies to improve ICT infrastructure performance, which could result in improved services to citizens and enhanced national development, social transformation, and economic diversification

An analysis of community-led superfast broadband initiatives in the UK and the potential for resilience

Despite interest from policymakers and the telecommunications sector to deliver superfast broadband to the whole of the UK, rural areas remain underserved, decreasing their ability to benefit from broadband-enabled services. Public intervention, primarily structured as national subsidies, is active across the UK to respond to this rural market failure. Complementing such practices are local-level strategies framed as community-led broadband initiatives. Their inclusion within wider superfast broadband installation strategies has not yet been examined. This doctoral research examines two of these initiatives, their structure and impact on the community to develop an understanding of their potential as replicable rural broadband delivery mechanisms. I analyse both the process of installing superfast broadband technology from community-led perspective and the subsequent engagement with superfast broadband through a qualitative longitudinal approach. A conceptual framework of 'social resilience' is developed as a contemporary analytical tool for examining these individual and community processes. The findings reveal an inherent complexity to rural community-led broadband provision. Community-led broadband reflects a 'localism' development approach, and this process has strengthened local rural identity. Following the adoption of superfast broadband, rural users experienced a growth in digital knowledge and individual resilience. However, the initiatives themselves are often discussed as 'separate from', or incompatible with, the telecommunications industry, as well as sitting outside the scope of current government interventions. In doing so, barriers to external networking and extra-local partnerships are built, limiting the opportunities for community-led broadband networks to become a substantive part of rural broadband delivery across the UK. Throughout the thesis, an understanding of these various tensions, impacting the success, use and replicability of rural community-led broadband, is developed and community-led broadband is shown to be another example of uneven rural development. I conclude by making recommendations for future digital policy interventions in the UK

Urban semiosis: Creative industries and the clash of systems

© The Author(s) 2014. This article has two aims. The first is to make the case that the ‘universe of the mind’ imagined by Yuri Lotman may be considered as a foundational model for cultural evolution (population-wide, dynamic, autopoietic, self-organising adaptation to changing environments). The second aim is to take forward a model of culture derived from Lotman’s work – a model I call ‘the clash of systems’ – in order to apply it to creative industries research. Such a move has the salutary effect of putting the ‘universe of the mind’ literally in its place. That place, now, predominantly, is in the city. Thus, the article uses Lotman’s model of the semiosphere to link different complex systems, principally the semiosphere with that of the city, in order to explore the productive potential of encounters – clashes – between different systems. Applying these insights to the field of creative industries research, the article proposes that creative culture in the globalised, urban and web-connected era can be characterised as ‘urban semiosis’

Roots Reloaded. Culture, Identity and Social Development in the Digital Age

This edited volume is designed to explore different perspectives of culture, identity and social development using the impact of the digital age as a common thread, aiming at interdisciplinary audiences. Cases of communities and individuals using new technology as a tool to preserve and explore their cultural heritage alongside new media as a source for social orientation ranging from language acquisition to health-related issues will be covered. Therefore, aspects such as Art and Cultural Studies, Media and Communication, Behavioral Science, Psychology, Philosophy and innovative approaches used by creative individuals are included. From the Aboriginal tribes of Australia, to the Maoris of New Zealand, to the mystical teachings of Sufi brotherhoods, the significance of the oral and written traditions and their current relation to online activities shall be discussed in the opening article. The book continues with a closer look at obesity awareness support groups and their impact on social media, Facebook usage in language learning context, smartphone addiction and internet dependency, as well as online media reporting of controversial ethical issues. The Digital progress has already left its dominating mark as the world entered the 21st century. Without a doubt, as technology continues its ascent, society will be faced with new and altering values in an effort to catch-up with this extraordinary Digitization, adapt satisfactorily in order to utilize these strong developments in everyday life

The challenges of social inclusion in outdoor education: can tortoise and hare learn together?

This paper makes use of Aesop’s Fable, the Tortoise and the Hare, to explore how we can facilitate outdoor learning in a way that helps to develop connections with nature. For many, especially young people and those experiencing physical and/or mental ill health, stepping outside into a natural environment can be a real challenge. Some of the themes explored: Potential barriers to participation - when Doing gets in the way of Being in nature; The role of the facilitator in fostering comfort rather than initiating concern (distress); The use of stories within outdoor education to foster familiarity, comfort and connections

Mobile phones and the promises of connectivity: Interrogating the Role of Information, Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Marketisation

This research investigates the role of ICTs (mobile phones) in economic development particularly in the Papua New Guinean coffee and fresh produce value chains. It aims to interrogate the promises and unwavering optimism attached to the 'ICT revolution' by examining the effects of ICTs on economic practices and the extent to which communication and network integration will be a driver of development. Following the deregulation of the telecommunications sector in 2007, considerable attention has been paid to the digital transformation in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands and the unprecedented growth of mobile phone and social media use. PNG's mobile phone penetration has increased exponentially from approximately 2% to over 48.6% in just over ten years (from 2005 to 2016 - World Bank 2017). Media commentators have noted with delight that there are now more Pacific Islanders with mobile phones than bank accounts and that in PNG alone, internet access from mobile phones is forecast to increase to about 50 per cent of the population in the near future (UNESCAP 2006, Beschorner 2008, SPC 2012). Much expectancy and promise has already been attached to the future impacts of such increased connectivity as World Bank Economists postulate that a 10% improvement in Internet penetration leads to an increase in GDP of up to of 1.5%; while 10% increase in mobile penetration can translate into a 0.81% increase in growth (Qiang et al. 2009). These projections are mainly premised on the assumption that increased connectivity will facilitate better access to current information about market prices and reduce price dispersion; producing savings in time, transport and search costs. Furthermore, ICTs could directly link small scale producers to buyer's markets by weeding out 'rent seeking' brokers and middlemen in the value chain through a process referred to as 'disintermediation'. Using case studies from key regional economic sectors, this thesis interrogates if such claims are borne out on the ground and tests if information infrastructure is necessarily going to lead to more openness, equality and an all-encompassing 'digital provide' (Jensen 2007)