ME: Use of Internet by low-income families

From: Eugene Matusov
Submit: Post Message
Date: 10 Nov 1996
Time: 23:26:48

Message

Hello everybody--

As you may know, last week I attened a small conference in St. Louis. I met there Melinda Bier, one of the authors of the aper, "Personal empowerment in the study of home Internet use by low-income families." I told her that we discussed the paper and she was very interested in our critisism. I promised her that we reconstruct the points and send them via e-mail.

Below what I remember. Please, add points that I missed.

1) The paper did not provide sufficient background (ecology) of the families in terms of how essential was use of Internet for people's life.

2) There was little discussion of negative consequences of the Intenet in low income families.

3) Why was HOME use of Internet so important for the people rather than let say LIBRARY use?

4) Was there any evidence that home use of Internet by some low-income families affected larger low-income community? Did the role of the chosen families changed in the local community?

5) How use of the Internet change family ecology? What was (if ever) joint use of Internet by the adults and children? Was any joint construction of new discourse that involved Internet between the adults and the children? How children used Internet?

6) What happens after the research?

What else?

Eugene