Internet

Originally posted on Jan. 19, 2016

In every election cycle, news stories tout the potential of online activism to engage people who have historically been less engaged in offline politics – particularly young people, women, and people with less education and income. Could this be true? If so, there would be new possibilities for enlarging American democracy – in an age when one in three eligible U.S. adults skips voting in presidential elections and two thirds of potential voters fail to show up in midterm elections.

But what if online activism mainly offers ways for citizens who are regularly politically active offline to amplify their already loud voices? In that case, online political opportunities would largely reinforce existing political inequalities.

Using national data on Americans who engage in various types of online and offline political participation, our research examines the evidence about these competing “new mobilization” and “reinforcement” perspectives on the impact of online activism. more...

For most Americans, protecting free expression means countering threats from government. Private corporations are not usually seen as threatening free speech. But as private technology companies increasingly mediate access to information and services, the distinction between governmental and private censorship becomes less clear. Concepts of free speech and freedom of expression may need to be revised and enlarged to take account of new threats in the age of digital communications—and policies to protect freedom of expression may need to counter threats, often subtle, from the private sector as well as government. more...

Advanced technologies spread unevenly to different groups of Americans, with low-income people and minorities lagging behind whites on most measures of access and usage. But recently African Americans and Latinos have been narrowing the digital divide. A 2010 study from the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project showed that minorities are increasingly active purchasers of Internet enabled phones; two years later, another Pew report documented that minorities are outpacing whites not just in mundane activities like talking on the phone and texting, but also in more sophisticated applications like Internet-banking.

But progress toward closing America’s digital divides could be stalled or reversed by adverse federal government regulations or restrictive interpretations by the Federal Communications Commission. The regulatory details at issue are quite specific, but they have potentially momentous social consequences.

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