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New technologies, old divides: linking internet access to social and locational characteristics of US farms

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Abstract

Access to new information and communication technologies is widely viewed as a prerequisite for participation in the global economy, so that inequalities in such access have become a significant policy concern. Rural areas are especially underserved in terms of internet providers, and this is true in both developed and less developed economies. This article focuses on access to the internet within farming operations in the US as an important aspect of understanding the digital divide within rural areas. Using county level data from the 2007 US Census of Agriculture and multivariate regression analysis, our study examines the statistical relationship between farm internet access and a set of explanatory factors which include demographic characteristics of operators, economic characteristics of farms, and geographic location (region and metropolitan status) of the farm. Further, it seeks to understand whether access to the internet can be socially and locationally differentiated from access to high speed internet. Our findings indicate that existing social divides are replicated in terms of the digital divide, so that social inequalities are potentially a more pressing problem than infrastructural gaps in terms of rural access to the internet in the US.

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  1. University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Pratyusha Basu & Jayajit Chakraborty

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  1. Pratyusha Basu
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  2. Jayajit Chakraborty
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Correspondence to Pratyusha Basu.

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Basu, P., Chakraborty, J. New technologies, old divides: linking internet access to social and locational characteristics of US farms. GeoJournal 76, 469–481 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-010-9370-x

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