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Theory and Literature Review

To understand how the digital divide (inequality) and the African American community relates to libraries one must first overview some of the theory and literature pertaining to each.  The following sections give an introduction to these topics.

As mentioned in the introduction the digital divide refers inequality of access to information technology and the internet—a dichotomous gulf between the technological “haves” and “have-nots.” (DiMaggio and Hargittai 2001).  This simple duality, however, insufficiently captures the complicated socio-technical mesh of people and ICT’s.  Just because a person has access to the web doesn’t mean they are still able to participate in equally in the contemporary¹ information society.  DiMaggio and Hargittai first problematized this issue in 2001 by introducing the concept of “Digital Inequality.”  They chose to operationalize this notion through five dimensions:

1. Equipment, defined as the adequacy of hardware, software, and internet connection.  Since computer standards change so quickly it remains a high priority to be able to deploy and interface with the latest technologies.
2. Autonomy, defined as the amount of control a person has over their use of a given ICT.  Access within the home might be the optimal level of autonomy, whereas access in workplaces or public spaces might be mediated by a myriad of factors, informal or systemic, social or technical.
3. Skill, defined as blend of a user’s varying education in regards to technology.  This might include relevant competencies such as ritualized knowledge (“recipes” for how to accomplish tasks), background knowledge (knowing something about the workings behind the scenes of interfaces), integrative knowledge about how the web operates on the whole, and technical/critical knowledge of the various elements of interaction (hardware, software, and effective troubleshooting).
4. Social support, defined as the availability of technical assistance when a given user reaches the limits of their own knowledge or skill.
5. Purpose, defined as the variance in the use of technologies and the web; all utilizations may not be considered equally important or valid.

This model of technological inequality is a significant step forward from the simple binary first proposed in the 1990’s, however it is still lacking in its coverage.  Constance Elise Porter and Naveen Donthu (2006) provide a satisfactory supplement and update to the DiMaggio/Hargittai model by examining the role perceptions make in determining digital inequality.  They find that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness help to explain, in part, the lower numbers of participation in older, less educated, lower income, and ethnic minority populations.  They also make several informed suggestions for the formation of new policies, such as the integration of access tools into familiar or preexisting  ICT’s (like say, televisions and cell phones), increased emphasis on training programs that assess attitudes and psychological needs (learn at your own pace programs), reducing the price of broadband, implementing trade-in programs to lesson fears of rapid technological obsolescence, and offering no-strings attached trial periods to let users determine usefulness and ease of use for themselves (Porter and Donthu 2006). Effectively, perceptions can act as a 6th dimension of digital inequality, but even this six point model doesn’t quite fully capture inequality in cyberspace.  To complete the model the author would like to offer a collage of concepts that embody what is termed Digital Consciousness.

Digital Consciousness refers to a consummate and immersive access relationship with the internet and ICT’s.  The concept is perhaps best explained as a blending of two forms of access pioneered by Adam Banks in his book Race, Rhetoric, and Technology (2006).  Banks follows Hargittai’s model by outlining material access (equipment) and functional access (skills).  Additionally, he adds experiential and critical access to the list, which deviate from the six point model previously explained.  Experiential access refers to access to tools in a capacity that makes them relevant to a person’s life.  Furthermore, people must be involved in “the spaces where technologies are created, designed, planned and where policies and regulations are written” (Banks 2006, p. 42).  Critical access resides in one’s ability to critique tools for their relevance and effectiveness.  Digital Consciousness is dependent on both of these categories and more.  It’s not just a question of knowing and questioning the relevance of internet technologies, but automatically and intuitively thinking critically with them.  The process of developing Digital Consciousness (the last layer of digital inequality) involves upbringing (socialization), literacy, and the rectification of self and structure online.

Users who grow up in contexts interlaced with the internet have different perspectives relating to self, family, and real and virtual communities that enable them to be more at comfort in cyberspace (McMillan and Morrison 2006).  Sally McMillan and Margaret Morrison explore the impacts and implications of this in their piece Coming of Age with the Internet: A qualitative exploration of how the internet has become an integral part of young people’s lives (2006).  The study required over 70 college students to write autobiographical accounts about their experiences on the internet.  Many students found the internet parallels their active and passive development of self as they determined their identities growing up.  Most participants felt the internet was an active place of participation where they could solidify their offline identities and utilized an instrumental more than hedonic approach in their exploration (McMillan and Morrison 2006).  Students acquired skills more so on their own then from the aid of educators, parents, or other outside forces because they found motivation as a result of relevance of the internet to their everyday lives.  McMillan and Morrison’s study, in agreement with numerous others, found that most of the time youth were not concerned with radically altering their personality online and felt their identities on and offline were not substantially different.

In regards to older internet participants, McMillan and Morrison’s study found the family was partitioned into two halves – the young and the old.  Siblings and other younger family members were perceived as insiders embedded in the social webbing of the net and acted as catalysts for the learning and usage of technology, whereas parents and older persons were classified by respondents as hesitant and less capable users who were seen as lacking confidence and sometimes were even ‘afraid’ of the internet (McMillan and Morrison 2006).  In contrast, the youngest generations were viewed in positive terms as they were fated to grow up even more so immersed in new media.  Last mentioned in the McMillan-Morrison study was that though the internet was considered fundamental in sustaining and enhancing real communities, the medium spurred profound impacts in student conceptions of community – enabling them to connect to global and virtual social groups in ways previously unknown.  Some respondents in McMillan and Morrison’s study even expressed definitions of community or society determined by technology; their grandparents and parents generations were defined by telephones and the television, and their generation was hallmarked by the internet.  This kind of outlook sounds almost reminiscent of technological determinism, suggesting that the sheer gravity of perceived influences of the internet is a significant factor of socialization.  Most respondent portrayals of the internet found themselves housed in the utopian/dystopian dichotomy, either hating or loving the impacts and wonders of virtual and global communities.  Inherent to every level of analysis was a certain level of dependency on the internet – respondents typified a life built and fueled largely upon access and usage of the web.  Details aside, the on-going theme was the emphasis and notability of the internet and its integration into daily-life; students were thinking naturally with the web in mind.

The development of Digital Consciousness may start at an even younger age, however.  Child’s play is sometimes denaturalized and seen as a problem, and yet this is potentially part of battling the digital divide (Sandvig 2006).  Understandings of the internet’s purpose are often restrictive when considering early youth development.  Authorities in schools and libraries often presume computers have a specific purpose, or as volunteers at one CTC for children regarded them, are “essentially a transmitter of important information that is to be learned” (Sandvig 2006).  This ideology is problematic because it qualifies important information as types of a non-recreational sort.  Games and play are all too often chastised as inappropriate or inefficient uses of ICT’s.  In the same venue use of MySpace by teens in libraries ought not to be seen as atrocious or inappropriate behavior.  Certainly some uses of such cyberspaces might be problematic, but on the whole it’s one of the places now-a-days that teens grow up and experiment with who they want to be.
While games and play might not match educator goals precisely they may still address digital inequality.  Play can be considered a form of computer literacy (to an extent) and may influence hand-eye coordination or problem-solving skills but it is unclear as to how much more effectively such tasks can be done on a computer than in other, less expensive or involved non-electronic forms. Even still it would match Bank’s notion of experiential access, and from an early onset help to build Digital Consciousness.  Instead of inappropriately applying old-world values to children’s practices it may be better to set realistic expectations in the formation of policy.

Digital Consciousness also involves a degree of digital literacy.  Hawisher, Selfe, Moraski, and Pearson (2004) explore the complexities of digital literacy in their piece Becoming Literate in the Information Age.  In the work they outline several key themes:

1. Literacies have life spans.
2. People can exert their own powerful agency in, around, and through digital literacies.
3. Schools are not the sole—and, often, not even the primary—gateways through which people gain access to and practice digital literacies.
4. The specific conditions of access have a substantial effect on people’s acquisition and development of digital literacy.  Access is best understood as part of a larger cultural ecology.
5. Families transmit literacy values and practices in multiple directions.  Information about or related to literacy flows from young to old (and vice versa) and from electronic to print (and vice versa).

(Hawisher et al. 2004).

This set of themes holds several implications.  First and foremost, it supports the notion that Digital Consciousness is something new.  If literacies have life-spans and new forms of literacy are required in the information era, then the Digital Consciousness is an embodiment or inclusion of those.  One’s capacity to influence and understand (realization of Digital Consciousness) also involves literacy.  Schools are one place where the skills for digital literacy might develop, but there are many others, such as libraries.  Youth are growing up in an increasingly networked world, as danah boyd² explains in her presentation Information Access in a Networked World (2007).  According to boyd they acquire information in three ways, osmosis, push, and pull.  Osmosis refers to the ability to pick up information passively in a world more saturated by media than ever before.  Push is the process of getting information directly in a purposed fashion from teachers, media, peers and family; the usual suspects when it comes to socialization.  Pull is information or content that individuals actively seek in an interactive fashion.  Wikipedia might be a good example.  To understand it, according to boyd, involves knowing how to “(1) understand the assembly of data and information into publications, (2) interpret knowledge, (3) question purported truths and vet sources, (4) analyze apparent contradictions in facts, and (5) productively contribute to the large body of collective knowledge.” (boyd 2007).  Digital Consciousness involves the ability to fluidly translate the offline to the online, be it print media to electronic media or face-to-face values and concepts to digital values and concepts.

The humanities and social sciences are becoming increasingly tied to the discourse happening on the web.  The report Our Cultural Commonwealth (2006) by the Learned Societies Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences explains the importance and transition quite aptly:

“As more personal, social, and professional time is spent online, it will become increasingly important to have an online environment that cultivates the richness of human experience, the diversity of human languages and cultures, and the full range of human creativity.” (Our Cultural Commonwealth 2006, p. 2).

If disadvantaged populations are to play a role in shaping this new cyber infrastructure (and ensuring it remains truly authentic and diverse) then they must be a part of the authorship process.  Equality in terms of Digital Consciousness must involve learning to master the strengths of social sciences, “clarity of expression, the ability to uncover meaning even in scattered or garbled information, and centuries of experiences in organizing knowledge” (Our Cultural Commonwealth 2006, p. 2) in cyberspace.

The last portion of Digital Consciousness involves a realization of self and structure.  Those who learn to think with the internet are able to reconcile their place within cyberspace.  This might be a compatibility or equivalency between digital and offline identity, as McMillan and Morrison (2006) mentioned.  It may also be an investment in digital technologies of self, such as characters in interactive environments like 2nd Life or World of WarCraft or as profile identities on social networking services like MySpace or Facebook.  Increasingly those growing up online are constructing their identities in these arenas of performance (Ginger 2008).  Through the experience of growing up with the internet (as well as on the internet) and developing intuitive and learned digital literacy people become digitally self-aware; they command an understanding of their digital selves in its many forms and its many relations to identity (offline or otherwise). 

Realization of structure could manifest in the form of comfort with the Permanently Beta nature of the web. ‘Beta’ is a technical insider term for software or hardware that is experimental and available before formalized release.  Beta products are similar to the final products but are in practice a way to get users to test the hardware or software before its official debut in the world.  The modifier beta, however, is only half of the pairing.  New routines and methodologies have been encoded into contemporary (web2.0) usage of the internet and values embedded in web technologies continually become evident in the development of technologies.  Principles such as openness and control, marketplace and community, and more make up the structure of web2.0.  The permanency of beta is an ideology and value characterized by Gina Neff and David Stark in their article (aptly titled) Permanently Beta (2004).  They identify it specifically as “a fluid organizational form resulting from the process of negotiation among users, employees, and organizations over the design of goods and services” (Neff and Stark 2004, p. 175).  Software, the web, and computers in general are not stable; they’re characterized by variability and adaptability.  Understanding this (experiential and critical access) is just the first step, immersing oneself in this lifestyle and capitalizing upon it is the second.  Permanently Beta technology structures rest on distributed accountability and decentralized decision making and include three key aspects: the beta test quality, encoded responsiveness, and community development (Neff and Stark 2004).  Beta testing refers to a product that is close to final and so it mostly operational, but still under construction.  These products are updatable and customizable and assume a dimension of realism not afforded to their static counterparts—design by the audiences they’re intended for.  This characteristic relates to encoded responsiveness, as programs are designed (at least in part) on account of their usage feedback features. Methods to gauge user reactions and social interpretations are purposely built firmly in to the basis of the interface and system.  Community development is the final section in the ensemble; various contributors independently and collaboratively help to transform and create the product with a varying and typically minimal level of transparency by the controlling manufacturer.  Marx would likely find this to be a colossal precedent – the insinuation is that the producer and consumer are one in permanently beta systems.  This implies a reorganization of the offline-world economic and production structures (Benkler 2006).  To participate in a permanently beta system, an individual must have a reconciled sense of unique digital structures, such as digital production.

In essence, the realization of self and structure refers to comfort with and participation in both digital identity and permanently beta aspects of the web.  This in turn constitutes the final aspect of Digital Consciousness.

On some level African Americans have historically “been deeply involved in the creation and use of a full range of technologies” (Pursell 2005, p. xv), but all too often they haven’t been recognized for it.  They certainly have not shared equal experience in this regard with more advantaged groups in America.  The coming of the 20th century and the information era raised questions as to how African Americans needed to position themselves in relation to technologies as well as negotiate the obligations to the emerging disparity present in the African Diaspora (Pursell 2005).  Challenges such as White Nationalism,³ the deregulation of civil rights, attacks on the black poor via the criminalizing of race and the inhibiting of access to education, negative portrayal of blacks in media, internal communities issues such as homophobia and sexism, and the employment crisis have all arisen as continuous and virulent problems faced by the African American community today (Walters 2003, Kitwana 2002).  The internet, global and stratified by nature, only serves to further complicate these questions.

Even as early as 2001 studies had surfaced indicating not only differences in access to computers and the internet at home and work between racial (and ethnic) minorities and whites (JBHE⁴ 2004), but also “social differences in the ways computers [were] used at school and home” (Attewell 2001, p. 253).  Interviews eliciting the attitudes of African American teens suggest that they are indeed very aware that the digital divide is about more than internet access, and think the resources needed to overcome it include social networks, computing skills, parents and role models, governmental policies, education, and church involvement (Payton 2003).  This finding echoes the call for Digital Consciousness.

Libraries have always been an essential source of knowledge and self and community empowerment.  In the past they have provided access to information resources of all kinds—from books to microfilm to expert librarians—and continue to do so today.  Back when the internet was still in its developing stages exploratory studies had begun to suggest public libraries as a viable solution to bridging the digital divide in African American communities (Bishop et al. 1999).  In the coming years libraries would find their place alongside other CTC’s as one of the only (and therefore crucial!) points of access to ICT’s.

More recent studies have unearthed several interesting findings in regards to internet use in libraries.  More patrons turn to the web (at home, work, libraries or elsewhere) than any other information sources, including experts and family members (who may be on the web) (Estabrook  et al. 2007).  Young adults (ages 18-29) are the most frequent library users and those who use dial-up connections are less successful than those with high speed connections in procuring material they need to address personal issues⁵ (Estabrook et al. 2007).  In short, internet access in libraries is important, and those who learn to use high speed access are more successful in finding information.  Youth entering (or beginning in) the workforce need to develop Digital Consciousness and libraries are a prime-time spot for this demographic.  Libraries can facilitate this process by continually evaluating networked resources, experimenting with new approaches and strategies for supplying these resources, and paying close attention to user opinions (McClure 2004).

In many ways this paper was inspired and informed by the report to the American Library Association completed in 2007 by John Carlo Bertot and associates.  This report and data will be discussed later in the findings section.

To truly address the digital inequality for the African American people and other disadvantaged populations we must call for extensive change; a social movement situated within the context of the information revolution.  Abdul Alkalimat profoundly constructs a vision for such a movement in his work Cyberorganizing (2004).  He calls upon three points of guidance, which are expanded upon here:

1. Cyberdemocracy, or the assurance that everyone is entitled to computer and web access. The insinuation of this clause is that provision of the internet—in some form—ought to be considered a public good.
2. Collective intelligence, defined as consensus of voice—everyone can be heard and help to create Cyberspace.  This is similar to the previously stated concept of the blending of producer and consumer and the digital extension of self and community (or institution).
3. Information freedom, otherwise known as the guarantee of free access to information.  This would ultimately combat the commoditization of intellectual subsistence and cultural heritage.  Contemporary movements often know the concept as open access.

Libraries command the instrumental advantage of being a pre-established and well-respected social institution that can help to fulfill this vision.  They offer all citizens⁶ internet access, a physical world community base that might facilitate collective intelligence, and most purport a strong value for freedom of speech and information.  The final two of Alkalimat’s points, however, require more than the entitlement of simple internet access; they in fact, stand as an invocation that demands Digital Consciousness (that is a, a collective consciousness) for all peoples.  In order for this movement to succeed libraries need to adopt dynamic and emergent strategies in their provision and allocation of computer and internet resources as well as their corresponding staff and policies.