Writing Samples

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Digital Divide in Urban St. Petersburg

Capstone project for B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies, August 2012

Introduction

In 1998, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) issued a report entitled “Falling Through the Net II: New Data on the Digital Divide.”  It updated the NTIA’s 1995 report on telephone, computer, and broadband adoption.  The importance of the computer in late-twentieth-century America was highlighted in the statement, “Now that a considerable portion of today's business, communication, and research takes place on the Internet, access to the computers and networks may be as important as access to traditional telephone services” (U. S. Department of Commerce 1998).  The “digital divide” was the gap seen in adoption of information and communications technology (ICT) between households at different income levels, ethnicities, and places of residence.  Although the use of broadband networks and computers in the home (the two key indicators of ICT access) has increased dramatically between the 1998 and 2011 reports, there still exists a gap in adoption rates between demographic groups. Looking at the data by ethnicity, approximately two-thirds of urban black households had a computer.  When examined by income, only 56% of low income households (under $25,000) had a computer (U. S. Department of Commerce 2011). 

During May and June 2012, I volunteered for ReachIT.org.  This non-profit organization accepts donations of computers that are being replaced by businesses or individuals, refurbishes them, and places them in low-income households where there are school-aged children.  ReachIT.org is currently working with the Pinellas County (Florida) School District to target at-risk children in the mostly low-income area of south St. Petersburg who attended Melrose Elementary School and John Hopkins Middle School.  I draw upon this experience for insight into the real-life situation in a community near where I live and to provide a local focus for the problem under investigation.

This area is bounded by I-175 to the north, 28th Avenue South to the south, I-275 to the west, and Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd. to the east (see Figure 1).  This corresponds to the census tracts 206, 207, 212, and 287 in Pinellas County. Information from the U. S. Census Bureau shows that the average of the median household income for these four tracts is $28,648 and approximately 20% of the families have incomes below poverty level. ¹ The 2010 census indicates that the population of this area is 92% African American (U. S. Census Bureau 2012a).

In this paper, I will apply Repko’s (2012) ten-step methodology for interdisciplinary research to the digital divide and integrate insights from the disciplines of computer engineering and technology and cultural anthropology with a goal of creating a greater understanding of the problem and identification of an area for future integrative work.

Figure 1. Map of St. Petersburg with research area highlighted.

¹ Income and poverty level data is not available except in the aggregate for the census tracts, so accuracy of these numbers is slightly off.  The imprecision does not skew the data significantly enough to impact the general conclusions that can be drawn.

Works Cited

Repko, Allen F. 2012. Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory. 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

U. S. Census Bureau. 2012. American FactFinder 2012a [cited July 7 2012]. Available from http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml.

U. S. Department of Commerce. 2012. Falling through the Net II: New Data on the Digital Divide. United States Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications & Information Administration 1998 [cited July 7 2012]. Available from http://www.ntia.doc.gov/report/1998/falling-through-net-ii-new-data-digital-divide.