Beyond universal service: Characteristics of Americans without telephones, 1980-1993

This paper explores the characteristics of Americans who lack home telephone service by drawing on FCC and Census data covering the period 1980-1993. It focuses on groups who have experienced lower than average telephone penetration per household - the elderly, the poor, women and children, blacks and Hispanics, and rural Americans. Income was found to be the single most influential factor in predicting the presence of a telephone in the home, although strong mitigating factors were also identified. Low penetration rates were found among women single heads of households. Low rates were also found among the two minorities studied in comparison with the white majority, even when controlled for income. Finally, the elderly, once thought to suffer from isolation, were found to enjoy higher than average telephone penetration rates. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of lingering questions and proposes considerations for policies that might lead to higher levels of participation.

What have we learned?

Debate over the potential and efficacy of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 arose at the moment of its first consideration, continued right through the President’s signature, and shows no sign of diminishing. In cosidering the impact of the Act five years later, three central issues emerge: competition, regulation, and access.The original publication is available at: http://newmillenniumresearch.org/archive/schement.pd

Why Democracy means,

This article examines the nature of the gap in household telephone penetration among Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics. By analyzing historic and current penetration levels of the radio, television, and telephone, it suggests that most information technology gaps are amalgamations of smaller socioeconomic trends and can be discerned and reduced only with careful historical analysis of both technology choices and living patterns. It proposes localized universal service strategies, since the penetration gaps are affected by a complex array of factors more particular to localities than to the country as a whole and as such must be investigated with rigor and caution if progress toward the elimination of penetration gaps is to occur

Encyclopedia of communication and information, Vol. 2/ Edit. : Jorge Reina Schement

351-713 hal.: ill.; 27 cm

Encyclopedia of communication and information, Vol. 2/ Edit. : Jorge Reina Schement

351-713 hal.: ill.; 27 cm

Encyclopedia of communication and information, Vol. 2/ Edit. : Jorge Reina Schement

351-713 hal.: ill.; 27 cm

Dancing with Napster: Predictable consumer behavior in the New Digital Economy

The Internet is often characterized as a "disruptive technology," as recently argued by the music industry against Napster and by Sony against PC emulations of its PlayStation. Three questions are raised: 1) How much does the Internet replace traditional media? 2) As another information channel, does the Internet supplement traditional media? 3) How much do Internet users navigate the Web in order to download relevant information goods (news, music, movies) as part of their consumption and purchase strategies?Data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project are used to test two competing hypotheses: 1) Easily copied and distributed digital content encouragesconsumers to exploit the "information wants to be free" character of the Internet, thereby hampering the growth of the market for information goods and services, and 2)Information consumers practice a sophisticated arbitrage process across different media, by weighing the value of online and offline information and thereby reinforcing active participation in the electronic marketplace. The efforts of the music industry to obstruct the downloading of MP3s may represent a serious misunderstanding of consumer arbitrage practices, much as book publishers characterize library use as a threat to book sales. Policy implications of thiswork extend into ongoing public and corporate policy debates about digital content and intellectual property.The original publication is available at: http://www.stanford.edu/group/siqss/itandsociety/v01i02/v01i02a11.pd

Communities, Learning and Democracy in the Digital Age

Access to information networks constitutes the essential tool for enabling citizens to participate in the economic, political, and social life of their communities; and, as such, forms the basis of participatory democracy. This paper presents and examines four components of access to telecommunications services: context, connectivity, capability, and content