Ethnographic Interviews On The Digital Divide

New Media & Society
http://nms.sagepub.com Ethnographic Interviews on the Digital Divide

Lynn Schofield Clark, Christof Demont-Heinrich and Scott A. Webber New Media Society 2004; 6; 529 DOI: 10.1177/146144804044333 The online version of this article can be found at: http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/6/4/529
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new media & society

Copyright 2004 SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi Vol6(4):529547 [DOI: 10.1177/146144804044333]
ARTICLE
Ethnographic interviews on the digital divide

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LYNN SCHOFIELD CLARK CHRISTOF DEMONT-HEINRICH University of Colorado

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SCOTT A. WEBBER Independent scholar

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Abstract
Employing narrative analysis of ethnographic interviews with persons from a variety of socioeconomic, educational, and racial/ethnic backgrounds, this article examines the discursive structure of the digital divide debate as it is articulated among contemporary online users and nonusers in the United States. The article argues that the discourse of individualism serves as a lter that shapes and distorts all private and public conversations about the digital divide and thus limits public debate on the subject. Some challenges to the dominance of individualism emerge when people discuss the digital divide in relation to the specic, lived situations of economic disadvantage. Yet we conclude that the potential political power of this critique is muted as it echoes rather than challenges the contradictions inherent to the promise of the digital era that are found at the heart of both corporate advertising and current social policies.
Key words
corporate interests economic disadvantage ethnographic interviewing individualism
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New Media & Society 6(4)
INTRODUCTION For many years, the United States and other governments around the world have advocated the development of computer skills, based on the belief that these skills are a necessity for the emerging marketplace and for participation in self-governance. Public rhetoric about computers trumpets grand, sweeping claims about the miracles of information technology, often equating technological progress with the promise of social benets that are equally offered to all (CEO Forum on Education and Technology, 2001; Gates, 1996; Negroponte, 1995; New York Times, 2000; Washington Post, 1997). Of course, the perceived need to close the divide is a much-discussed issue. Many ethnographers have noted that the digital divide reects other deep divides in society, and as such cannot be addressed with technological solutions alone (Bird and Jorgenson, 2001; Clark, 2003; Livingstone, 2001; Webber, 2003). Similarly, critical theorists such as Robins and Webster (1999) and Colby (2001) have argued that public policies that are supportive of computers in schools and other public places can actually reinforce, rather than alleviate, structural inequalities. Moreover, critical race theorists Nakamura (2002) and Sterne (2000) have noted the ways that computer practices extend injustices related to racial/ethnic inequalities while also reinforcing stereotypes about differing groups. These and other scholars point out the ways in which techno-boosterism functions to promote corporate interests as universal interests, thus enabling social policies on computers to benet corporate prots rather than to address deeplystructured inequalities. This article explores how people from various positions relative to computer access and competency experience these issues of the digital divide. We wondered how people negotiated the tensions that emerge as computers are touted as both tools for individual and social empowerment and for leisure and consumption. To explore this contradiction, we asked people who had varied levels of access to, and competency with, computers about their personal experiences and beliefs regarding the digital divide, and closely analyzed the narratives that resulted in these discussions. In a similar approach that focused on an analysis of policy documents in the European Union (EU), Goodwin and Spittle (2002) demonstrate that there is a pattern to the ways in which computers are discussed by policymakers. They note four discursive themes that emerge in the documents they examined: (1) information technology as both a threat and an opportunity for the nation-state; (2) technological determinism, or the belief that inevitably, computers will alter the future;
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Schoeld Clark et al.: Digital divide interviews
(3) market determinism, or the belief that current market structures will continue unfettered; and (4) the citizen primarily dened as consumer. They discuss the process by which these four themes limit the ability to envision alternatives to existing policies. In ethnographic interviews with computer users and non-users about computer use, we observed similar discursive patterns as people sought to negotiate their own positions relative to the so-called digital divide. Goodwin and Spittles (2002) category of technological determinism, or the inevitability of computers in the future of everyday life and its economics, was one way in which people talked about computers in our study. Similar to Goodwin and Spittles category of the citizen-as-consumer, another common theme among our research participants was the importance of consumer choice. A further theme that emerged in our conversations one that was not mentioned by Goodwin and Spittle was that of the educational benet of computers and their potential for increasing a childs eventual job prospects. Each of these three topics emerged in our discussions with respondents from various socioeconomic, educational and racial/ethnic backgrounds. Yet in these conversations, one theme did override all others in discussions of the digital divide: individualism. As with Goodwin and Spittles analysis of how limitations on discursive strategies in turn constrain the ability to envision policy alternatives, we believe that the rhetoric of individualism provides a key to understanding the constraints that exist on the way in which the topic of the digital divide is conceived of, and discussed, among the US public today. In the US, to follow de Tocquevilles (1835/2000) denition of the term, individualism refers to the sense that self-reliance and initiative are virtuous traits to be encouraged and rewarded. The presumed virtues of individualism have been often called upon to offer justication for a declining commitment to social obligation, most recently in the form of the dismantling of the welfare state. Individualism is a habit, as Bellah et al. (1985) imply, to the extent that habits may be described as ways that abstract concepts about human relations become concretized and socially reproduced through practices that reect material conditions (see Bourdieu, 1984, on the habitus). Bellah et al. (1985) argue that individualism is a rst language that structures and limits the way in which people are able to speak of their own experiences. As Frederic Jameson writes in his critique of the work of Bellah et al. on individualism:
The rst language or discourse of individualism . . . powerfully deects and deforms everything that passes through it; like a system of cartographic projection it translates the content offered it into the style and specicity of its own volumes and contours, with the Wittgensteinian consequence that
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whatever it cannot express falls outside of social reality . . . This means the exclusion of alternatives, of visions of radically different kinds of social arrangements, which cannot compute in the dominant discourse or language. (1987: 556)
Jameson argues that individualism is a legitimated, taken-for-granted view that permeates public policy documents as well as less formalized expressions of public opinion. In this article, we demonstrate how this rst language or discourse of individualism constrains the public debates of the digital divide. After highlighting several examples in which individualism seemed to trump other possible approaches to the digital divide in respondents narratives, we discuss cases in which the narrative theme of individualism was present but tempered by the lived experience of economic disadvantage. After considering the contradictions that emerged in our conversations in relation to the tension between the construction of computers as a luxury item and as a tool of social, economic and possibly political empowerment, we explore the possibility (albeit slight) that challenges to individualism might lead to changes in the strategies that are proposed to increase the availability of computer hardware and skills for those who currently lack such provisions. CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY AND NARRATIVE ANALYSIS Following a tradition associated with Antonio Gramsci, critical ethnographers aim to understand the relationship between societal structures (especially economic and political) and ideological patterns of thought that constrain the human imagination and thus limit opportunities for confronting and changing unjust social systems (Gibson, 2000; Peck, 2001; Stabile, 1995). We use the term discourse to refer to the ways in which narratives are patterned in both public and private conversations in reference to existing systems of power as they operate through cultural categories such as race, gender or socioeconomic position. Narrative analysis is a particularly useful way in which to consider how this process of discursive constraint occurs. In order to communicate meaningfully with others, individuals must draw upon publicly-available narrative themes when describing their own beliefs. None of us can construct completely idiosyncratic narratives, therefore, but must choose which public narratives we will draw upon from a repertoire of narratives which are afforded legitimacy or delegitimated, depending on their relation to existing institutions and structures of power. As Mehan notes:
Language has power. The language we use in public political discourse and the way we talk about events and people in everyday life makes a difference in the way we think and the way we act about them . . . words have constitutive power; they make meaning. And when we make meaning, the world is changed as a consequence. (1997: 250)
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By analyzing personal narratives, therefore, we seek to uncover links between individual narratives and public frameworks of meaning in order to understand both the discursive contours of the particular cultural moment as well as the way in which individuals construct ways of living within it. To explore the narrative limits that articulate and offer justication for the material discrepancies of computer ownership in the US, our research team employed a loosely-structured interview guide to conduct interviews with 70 people in 20 family groups.1 In this article we focus on six families (a total of 17 individuals): two with annual incomes between $35,000 and $70,000 and four families with incomes below $35,000 a year. According to census data, the current median household income in the US is $42,200 (DeNavas-Walt and Cleveland, 2002). Therefore, our sample is weighted toward lower-income families, a reection of our desire to learn how families with lesser means experience the digital divide. Four of these households were headed by a single parent. All six families owned at least one computer. However, several of these families had older, hand-medown computers; four out of the six families had internet access at home. Interviewees were located through referrals from various gatekeepers who worked in several non-prot agencies that were focused on helping underprivileged families. Interviewees were located also by way of the acquaintance and friendship networks of the researchers. In addition, researchers located multiple families for interview via the snowball technique (in which families that had been interviewed were asked to assist the researchers in nding additional interviewees). Families were recruited using what Lindlof (1995) has termed maximum variation sampling, in which each family was expected to add a contrasting element to the overall sample.2 Most members of the family groups were interviewed on two separate occasions: rst they were seen collectively with all members of the family present, and a second time separately and individually. This twotiered method of interviewing afforded opportunities to observe the familys interaction concerning the issue of computers as well as more in-depth discussions of each members use of, and beliefs about, computer usage. Data collection took place between January 2001 and August 2002. All the interviewees names were changed, as were the names of identiable geographic locations and social institutions such as schools, churches and places of employment. Analysis of the data began immediately after the rst family interview was conducted and continued concurrently with data collection. A team of researchers reviewed and discussed each interview transcript, collectively deciding upon appropriate questions for the follow-up interviews with individual family members. Mentions of computers and success were coded and discussed using a constant comparative method (Glaser and Strauss,
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1967). Discussions of possible patterns in the data began in November 2001 and continued through to the nal writing of this article. INDIVIDUALISM UNCONTESTED The rst pattern that emerged in our analysis of narratives was not particularly surprising: the persons who hailed from households with relatively greater incomes were the most likely to offer narratives that were heavily infused with individualism. Parents in the relatively well-off Mueller household, as well as the other middle- and upper-income families that were interviewed, believed that the responsibility of developing computer competency among the population rested with each individual rather than with the government, social service agencies or other institutions. Consistent with their views, parents in each of these households were doing their best to insure that their children had the means to attain the computer skills that they believed were necessary for success in the future. Like other parents in this income group, Donald Mueller was quite emphatic in his belief that the digital divide was not a serious problem in the US. Donald, a 30-year-old Anglo-American, was an enthusiastic rebuilder of computers, having refurbished one for his parents and another for use at home by his wife Kathy (27) and his 7- and 3-year-old sons. An engineer who earned between $35,000 and $70,000 a year, Donald noted that he often used his work computer to conduct research on products that he was interested in purchasing for his suburban home in a small southwestern city. When asked whether or not he believed that the digital divide was a problem in the US, Donald replied:
Oh yeah. Denitely. But those people choose not to [have a computer] . . . Its not a priority.
He related the lack of interest in computers to age, noting that he was in the process of refurbishing a computer for his parents and anticipated that it would be a struggle to teach them the basics of computer use. While age might be a factor, he rejected the idea that the cost and limited access were disincentives, as he noted:
I mean, come on, these surplus auctions . . . if you really want to go to extremes, I mean for less than 100 bucks you can have a computer that you can surf the Net, do your email, and everything like that. Of course, there are some areas that do not have service providers. But even then, if somebody really wants to do something, I dont care if its technology related or . . . whatever, if they really want to do it, then they will do it.
Neither Donald nor his wife Kathy agreed with the idea that certain organizations should provide access to those whose access was limited, in schools or in their homes. In the statement above, Donald implied that
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people could somehow overcome even the limits of lacking service providers if they desired it enough, offering a mystical if they build it, service will come philosophy for the real technological problem of limited access. We see in his statement a strong belief in self-reliance and initiative, a position that provides justication for letting governments, schools and other public programs off the hook for any perceived failure to provide access to technology or development of competency. Surprisingly, this view of self-help as the primary reason for credit or blame in the realm of computer competency was not limited to those families from upper-income brackets. Similarly, many of the families of much lesser means rejected the idea that anything other than individual motivation and initiative might play a role in closing the current gaps in ownership and online access. These families which included those who might be targeted by programs seeking to provide courses in competency or access-related programs also rejected any possibility that persons or programs beyond the individual should play a role in closing the gap. However, this was not because they believed that there no longer was a gap in ownership and competency a position that is touted in contemporary policy reports justifying cuts to federal funding of such programs (e.g. United States Department of Commerce, 2002). Instead, people voiced the belief that computer competency programs were unnecessary because computers and access to the online environment were a luxury related to entertainment and consumer choice, rather than necessary for participation in contemporary society and its education, economy or politics. In this way, the discourse of individualism framed discussions of computer use so as to emphasize the possibilities for leisure-oriented consumption over and above those for education or citizenship. The language of individualism was not limited to the upper-income families in our sample, however. Chris Chandler was a person of lesser means who spoke against digital divide programs, based on the view that computers are primarily entertainment machines and, as such, luxury items. Chris, a 35-year-old Anglo-American, was a divorced father with custody of his 8-year-old daughter Alicia for one night a week and every other weekend. He was working for his second year as a eld credit representative, or a repo man in common parlance: he repossessed items from consumers when they failed to make payments. While he projected that his income would be above $35,000 for the current year, that amount was double what he had earned in previous years, and he expressed no plans to move from his one-bedroom apartment. When asked if he was familiar with the term digital divide, Chris replied:
Yes, I have heard it with the media. And I guess I have always taken the term to mean kind of an economic type of thing as to basically people who cant
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afford a computer, or also they never . . . they are intimidated by computers, I guess would be another way to say it.
Like Donald Mueller, Chris Chandler related the digital divide to both economic choices and inexperience, citing in particular his mothers lack of expertise with computers:
I know that there are people who are intimidated [by computers]. We had to force my mom to buy one and she doesnt use it much. She uses it now for recipes [laughs].
Also like Donald Mueller, he expressed skepticism about the idea that the digital divide might constitute a problem. To him, although it might be important in schools for educational purposes, in the home it was a luxury item:
Interviewer: So who would be responsible for closing the digital divide? Chris: The individuals. I dont feel that it is important for the divide to be closed and I think that if schools have it, its going to naturally close. I think that if you bring kids up on using computers then as these kids grow older its going to naturally close. But I dont think there should be a program where, you know, the government goes out and gives everybody a computer.
In this statement, education enters as a secondary theme that is related to computers and technological determinism: schools should have computers, and as a consequence of this introduction of technology at a young age, the digital divide will naturally close, as Chandler stated. Donald Mueller, Chris Chandler and others we interviewed who shared their views were all relatively experienced computer users, even if they hailed from differing economic backgrounds. Yet like Donald and Chris, Tina Wilson, a 28-year-old Anglo-American single parent with little direct experience of computers, was unconvinced by programs that purported to close the digital divide. As a low-paid day-care provider, Tina had limited access to computers through her work and lacked the means to purchase a computer for personal use with her 6-year-old daughter in their twobedroom apartment. She was looking forward to the day when she and her live-in boyfriend Ron, 26, would receive his parents computer after they upgraded. As a person whose income was close to the poverty line, yet who was thoroughly committed to her childs education and related opportunities, one might assume that Tina would be an ideal candidate for programs that seek to close the digital divide by providing computers in the home for those who cannot afford them (for statistics on poverty, see United States Census Bureau, 2001). However, rather than viewing herself as a possible beneciary of such programs, she saw potential beneciaries as people other than herself:
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Interviewer: Have you heard the term digital divide? Tina: No. What is it? Interviewer: There is another phrase, computer haves and have-nots. Essentially, for some people, digital divide means that some people have access to computers and other people dont. Tina: The haves and have-nots, right. Interviewer: Yeah, and that some people have access to the internet and others dont, see, they may have access to computers but they dont have access to the internet. And then some people have computers in their home and other people dont; you know it might be at the library, or some people have access to the internet in their homes, and other people dont. Have you ever given any thought to that? Some people see it is unfair. There are some people who were completely wired now, and some people arent, and Im just wondering, is that. . . Tina: So the people that arent wired are thinking that thats unfair that they are. . . Interviewer: It will even be people who all are wired or saying that everyone should be wired. Tina: Right, like why are you permitting this? Why are you doing this to yourself? Interviewer: Not even doing it to yourself, but they kind of think that society. . . . For instance, computers are really expensive, the internet is expensive. . . Tina: Everything is. Interviewer: And internet access, its just one more thing that you have to have to participate in society today and it costs a heck of a lot of money [laughs]. . . Tina: Yeah, right. Interviewer: Im just wondering if youve ever given any thought to that, or. . . Tina: You know, I guess if we werent being given a computer, I wouldnt put out money, I wouldnt put money out to get one, because its unimportant to me. Although Ron would, and so because it was important to Ron, then you know, I would go ahead and do it but I dont feel the need for a computer, Ive gone this long without one. On the ip side I think it would be a great opportunity to talk to Siennas grandma in California more, to be more connected to my friend in New York who has got an email address, and stuff like that, or, if Siennas doing homework, you know, blink, blink, blink, click on bird eating spiders, and what they are about, and do a report on it and because we have more. . . you know what Im saying? So I think theyre benecial, but I dont feel like [I have to have one].
Potential recipients of governmental programs offering computers were, in Tinas mind, people who complained that their lack of computer ownership was unfair but were to blame for their own lack; they were doing it to
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themselves. Relying on the discourse of individualism, she stated that everyone should be responsible for purchasing his or her own computer. Echoing David Mueller, Chris Chandler and others, Tina believed that people like her who did not purchase computers simply did not prioritize such purchases. Like these other parents, she argued that computers were becoming less expensive all the time. Yet while David Mueller and others sounded scornful of those whom they believed were not self-sufcient enough to gure out how to purchase and refurbish what they considered to be affordable computers, Tina, like Chris Chandler, offered reasons why computer ownership was not as important as people had been led to believe. She articulated the narrative theme that relates computers to educational attainment when speaking of the possible scholastic benets that her family could gain from owning one, while also constructing the computer as a luxury item oriented to consumption and leisure: in this case, serving as a way for her to communicate with her friends and family. By using the language of individual choice and lack of motivation to explain why she does not have a computer, however, she was able to preserve her own sense of self-reliance while constructing computers as a luxury item. Both the educational benets for her daughter and the social benets of connection with her loved ones were downplayed as a luxury that she chose not to consume. Thus we see in Tinas words evidence of how individualism as a discourse structures secondary narrative themes of the educational, social and entertainment benets of computer ownership and use. In discussions of the educational benets of computers and of the possibilities for increased social contact and other consumer-oriented activities, we heard narrative themes that echoed those of Tina from several other economicallydisadvantaged single parents. INDIVIDUALISM FILTERED BY EXPERIENCE As could be expected by our earlier discussions of individualism as a dominant, legitimated discourse, we were not participants in any conversations that were completely free of appeals to the importance of selfreliance and initiative. When it came to discussions of the digital divide, parents from varying socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and geographic positions argued from the perspective that parents could, and should, take the initiative in addressing themselves to the problem of discrepancies in computer access, ownership and competency. Many parents made mention of the presumed benets that computer competency held for their childrens education and their participation in the emerging digital economy. In apparent contradiction, on the one hand, parents argued that technological progress was inevitable and would itself change reality as we know it, and on the other, that personal freedoms or agency within this emerging system
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were possible, and the key to such individual power rested in attaining appropriate computer-related skills. While educational benets, technological determinism and consumer choice were all narrative themes that emerged and were secondary to individualism, there were nevertheless some adults (notably all single mothers in our sample) who employed individualist discourse while also calling into question some of its resulting outcomes. This questioning was framed in relation to the rst-hand experiences of living in less than desirable nancial circumstances, as was the case for single parents Megan Sealy, Anna Lally, grandparent Molly Wilcox and others. They expressed doubts about the individualistic assumptions that were seemingly inherent to topics of the digital divide, when encouraged to reect on the knowledge that they had gleaned from lived experience. Megan Sealy was a 40-year-old Anglo-American single mother of limited economic means who lived in a small city in the south-west. As one of a growing number of non-traditional students now owing into American universities and colleges, she had recently acquired a new computer as a part of her return to college to complete her undergraduate degree. Megan, a horticulturalist, said that her household income had recently risen to between $25,000 and $35,000 annually. She lived in a two-bedroom apartment with her 17-year-old son, Dell, a high-school dropout who had worked in the automotive industry and landscaping. Her son had bought the familys rst new computer, a Gateway, less than a year before the rst interview in February 2002. The familys other computer, which Megan said she rarely used once she nished with college, was purchased used when Megan began attending community college in 1993. As was true with virtually all of the interviewees considered in this article, Megan was not familiar initially with the term digital divide, although she was intimately acquainted with the concept. When Megan was asked what she thought about the digital divide, she replied:
I think its very true. I think our society is becoming more of the haves and the have-nots. Theres a greater divide between the middle class is getting more blurred and its either: youre poor or youre rich. And I do think it is a shame that a lot of people dont have access. I think its great that companies step up to the plate and buy computers for people who live in Harlem and stuff like that who dont have those kinds of resources. Just because those people are at a disadvantage in society. Just in general, their not having that technology [puts them at a disadvantage].
Here, Megan draws explicit attention to class divisions within the context of questions about the digital divide. At the same time, she invokes a technological determinist perspective, which holds that computers are a necessary resource for success.
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Several other single parents discussed economic class directly in response to such questions. Among them was Anna Lally. A 23-year-old AngloAmerican, Anna was a master electrician and single parent to 7-year-old Bob. Anna, whose annual household income uctuated between $25,000 and $30,000, did not have internet access in her two-bedroom apartment, and used a computer only to a limited extent at her workplace. Reecting what seemed to be a general and deep ambivalence about computers, many of Annas responses to questions were rich in contradiction. When asked about how important she thought computer skills were to success, she offered observations inected by the notions of technological determinism and educational benet, themselves framed within the rst language of individualism:
I think depending on what youre doing, it sure helps to have computer knowledge. And there are certainly elds that you go into where you need computer knowledge. I mean, certainly you cant walk in the door of any job out there and expect to succeed without that. So I think that under certain circumstances you do need that knowledge. But I think thats more of an individual responsibility than anything.
However, Annas ambivalence extended beyond skepticism toward computer technology a skepticism that she attributed in part to her own general lack of knowledge and experience with computers to uncertainty about the balance between individual and social responsibility. Here is Annas somewhat contradictory response to a question about whether the digital divide is a problem and how it should (or should not) be addressed:
So I think that there are some people that just choose not [to get a computer]. But then there are also people who cannot afford to, who dont have the nancial means for whatever reason. So I think I would disagree [that computers are a luxury item]. Because its like saying that there is no upper class and lower class. [That] there is no middle class or upper class. You know, theres no poverty. Thats bullshit. [laughs] So, yeah, I think there is a divide there. And where exactly its specied, who knows. You know, I dont think its just two categories. I think there are different reasons for that divide. Yeah, there are some people who choose not to and there are some people who dont have a choice about it, or dont appear to have a choice about it.
Echoing the critiques of critical theorists while also invoking the language of consumer choice, Anna Lally recognized the deeper societal divisions that shape and reinforce differences in computer use and knowledge. Similarly, Molly Wilcox reected on computers and the digital divide with deep ambivalence. At 69, Molly worked part-time as a clerk at a local department store to help provide support for her single-parent daughter (who is unable to work due to a disability) and her granddaughter. She had very limited experience with the familys previously-owned computer with slow access,
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but nevertheless believed in the importance and inevitability of computers, especially in relation to her granddaughters future prospects. While, like Megan and Anna, Molly spoke of the importance of parental initiative in securing access to a computer and the skills that were deemed necessary, she spoke of the digital divide by ip-opping between narrative strategies that embraced and eschewed the assumptions of individualism:
I think its [the digital divide] really sad. I wish I could help the situation but I wouldnt have any idea about how to go about [it] to help. Ah, but I think somewhere along the line weve lost our system has lost whats right is right for everybody and whats wrong is wrong for everybody. I dont care if you have a million dollars, or you have two cents. It shouldnt matter. It should be for everybody. Its never going to be that way. You can go to the library and use one, though. I mean, as long as theyre in places, I mean you cant give everybody a computer. But I think the system is so out of whack as to who earns what, as to who has what. And thats not good.
In this contradictory response to the question of the digital divide, we witness a sense of self-reliance and agency in her wish that she could help solve problems of the digital divide, and an afrmation of how this position echoes contemporary information policy in her sense that people could go to the library and use one because you cant give everybody a computer. Nevertheless, Molly also expressed concern that our system doesnt treat people equally when they have differing economic means; as she said, the system is so out of whack as to who earns what, as to who has what. And thats not good. Mollys references to the system, as well as Anna and Megans restatement of the digital divide in terms of what they believe are persistent class differences, suggest a different narrative strategy that is not completely contained within individualism. It is, we argue, a largely delegitimated critique specically related to their own experiences of economic disadvantage. Furthermore, while not named as such, the critique echoes the concerns of Marxism. Embedded in their recognition of differential access to cultural and economic capital is the assumption that socioeconomic inequalities result from the ways in which labor and capital are organized so as to maximize wealth for the few. This critique is at some distance from the discourse of individualism, which suggests that ones socioeconomic circumstances may be primarily related to individual motivation, or lack thereof. DISCUSSION Discourses of the digital divide As we have noted, individualism plays an important role in structuring the way in which people think and talk about the digital divide. Yet as we have demonstrated, while individualism factored into each conversation about the
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digital divide, not all the narratives that we analyzed were neatly contained within it. What are we to make of these contradictions? For our analysis, we return to Jameson. Jameson (1987) notes that while Bellah et al. (1985) insightfully identied the importance of individualism in American expression, they failed to address themselves to the questions of legitimacy that have been central to the studies of discourse within the cultural studies tradition (see e.g. Halls 1980 analysis of the declining legitimacy of welfare state discourse under Thatcherism). Jameson recognizes that within the dominant discourse of individualism there may exist several secondary narrative themes that, for the most part, reinforce the legitimacy of the primary discourse or may be reformed (or deformed) to serve its interests. He proposes, however, that what is missing from the critique of individualist discourse offered by Bellah et. al. is what he suggests as a third language: that of Marxist or socialist critique. This discourse is silenced in US society for a variety of historical and material reasons. As an inheritance of the Cold War, the label of Marxism is itself considered as anathema to national loyalties. In this article we argue that, while in an era of increasing awareness of economic disparities, elements of this third language emerged in conversations with persons who speak from the lived situations of economic disadvantage, as was the case in the narratives of the single parents reviewed above. While unnamed as such, we propose that this critique of individualism offers some vestiges of Marxist critique in relation to the issue of public policy formation around the socalled digital divide. Yet, the potential political power of this critique is muted as it echoes, rather than challenges, the contradictions inherent in the promise of the digital era that are found at the heart of both corporate advertising and current social policies. What we found in this study, therefore, was not evidence of a third language of Marxist critique in relation to the issue of public policy formation around the so-called digital divide. Instead, we found evidence of where and how conicts with the dominant discourse emerged. This evidence is signicant because it allowed us to identify delegitimated narrative approaches to the digital divide that become smoothed over with the discourse of individualism. These conicts with the dominant disourse echo contradictions that have been embedded in the promises of the digital era from its beginnings. On the one hand, respondents articulated views that have long been a part of public policy debates that have funded technological initiatives in schools and other public sites: that computers could be used to facilitate social, economic and political empowerment. On the other hand, respondents articulated the views that have been a part of marketing strategies for computers, that emphasize the promise of enhanced consumption for leisure activities. This is not a new marketing strategy, but dates back to the earliest
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days of mass society, as Marchands (1985) work on advertising demonstrated (M. Andrejevic, personal communication, 24 September 2002). As we have noted, technological determinism factored into almost every conversation in this study, as people explained what they perceived to be the inevitability of computers in the workplace and home, as well as their sense that the technology was changing their sociocultural environment in ways that were beyond the control of any individuals or groups. This assumption, which is at rst glance in contradiction to the agentive assumptions inherent to individualism, was accompanied by the belief in the educational benets of computers. Essentially, many people believed that inevitably computers were changing the environment, and the only way to retain agency was to learn about computers so as to pursue ones own interests, be they oriented to economic self-improvement or consumption and leisure activities. We argue that this belief in the computers ability to propagate agency and self-determination is itself a product of a hegemonic sociocultural structure. At the same time that those with lesser socioeconomic status are being told that computers are a key aspect of the educational attainment that might enable them to move up the American socioeconomic ladder, they are also sold the notion that computers comprise a luxury item whose primary application is consumption of entertainment. Such a contradictory sales pitch would not be possible without the overarching discourse of individualism. This discourse explains away such contradiction and glosses over the fundamental ambiguity and complexity of the social production and appropriation of technology. It does so by lodging its explanation in the appealing, if also often socially debilitating, language of individual choice. There exists a complex complicity in the rhetoric of computers as educational tools and the rhetoric of computers as luxury items for consumer choice. Selling the computer as techno-educational panacea positions corporate information technology giants as fundamentally aiding a socially progressive project that seeks the enhanced life experiences of all in society. Yet pitching computers at the same time as primarily, if not exclusively, instruments for individual entertainment tends to absolve both corporate computer giants and governments of any signicant responsibility for providing access to computer technology and knowledge. This Janusfaced sales pitch allows information technology giants (as well as other media industry giants) to tout the educational benets of computers and computer technology at the same time as they create an ever-growing market of consumers for their products by selling computers as tools for entertainment and leisure. In essence, corporations that market computers are able to have it both ways. At the same time, persons of lesser economic means have apparently no choice but to at least partially buy into the view that computers are an important aspect of socioeconomic advancement. However, buying into this rhetoric is of little benet to most of them.
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Socioeconomic class divisions do not disappear because of the computer, a recognition that is evidenced in the challenges to individualism that we observed among some of our research participants. As Slevin (2000) has noted, inevitably, computer use is related to the political and economic organization of society. Forces of globalization and change, as well as policies that directly govern technological development, invariably shape individual experiences of the world and its technologies. While computers and the online environment were once envisioned primarily as educational tools that held out the possibility for increased selfgovernance, it is no longer possible to consider these goals separately from their uses as devices of consumption and leisure. Based on the fact that the technology has been able to develop according to market prerogatives, it is difcult to envision how further development of the technology might be managed so as to encourage the desired educational and civic uses, rather than enhanced leisure-oriented consumption. This situation creates at least two dilemmas for policymakers that are faced with decisions regarding digital divide programs. First, policymakers and others concerned with the digital divide must confront the problem of how to encourage positive civic and educational uses without giving unfettered freedoms to the corporations who stand not only to benet by proposing the computer as an entertainment and leisure machine, but are absolved of any social responsibility. Second, the leisure-oriented consumption uses of computers actually undermine support for civic and educational programs that emphasize access and increased competence for all. This allows corporate interests to more easily (in some cases seamlessly) articulate their own interests at the expense of those related more to selfimprovement, democracy and civic engagement. CONCLUSION This article has demonstrated ways in which the rst language or dominant discourse of individualism shapes, distorts and limits the possibilities for challenging the current market-driven approach to computers, which we believe privileges corporate interests at the expense of any other interests. We note how the various themes that emerged in conversations about the digital divide technological determinism, educational benets and consumer choice are each shaped and distorted by the dominant discourse of individualism. Moreover, as the concerns of citizens have been transformed into a self-identication as consumers, a formidable barrier to political resistance has been erected (Gibson, 2000). Thus, it is not easy to envision how these challenges to individualism might be translated into effective political resistance. While some questioned the assumptions of individualism out of their lived experiences of economic disadvantage, we argue that their contradictory comments offer less evidence of the seeds for
544
political resistance than an echo of contradictions that have long been at the heart of corporate advertising and current social policies regarding computers, and that are inherent to the promises of the digital era itself.
Notes
1 In this overall sample, from which the specic families mentioned in this article were drawn, seven of the family groups had annual household incomes of less than $25,000, eight had incomes between 25,000 and $35,000, and ve had incomes above $35,000 (with three of these reporting annual incomes above $70,000). 2 Fourteen families in the sample were headed by a single parent and six by two parents. Fifteen of the families had a parent who had completed an associates degree (post-high school, two-year technical degree) or less formal education, ve had a parent who had completed a bachelors (undergraduate) degree, and one had completed some coursework toward a masters degree. Twelve of these families identied themselves as Anglo-American or Caucasian, and eight identied with multi-racial/ethnic heritages (including Hispanic, Anglo/Mexican American, Hispanic/ White, Hispanic/Native American/White, Latino/Caucasian/Indian/Filipino, French/ African American/Dutch Black and Anglo/African American).
References
Bellah, R.N., R. Madsen, W. Sullivan, A. Swidler and S.M. Tipton (1985) Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bird, E. and J. Jorgenson (2001) Closing the Rural/Urban Divide: Cultural Context and Educational Computer Literacy in Rural Florida, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Washington, DC, May. Bourdieu, P. (1979/1984) Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. CEO Forum on Education and Technology (2001) Education Technology Must Be Included in Comprehensive Education Legislation, March, URL (consulted 28 September 2002): http://www.ceoforum.org/reports.cfm Clark, L.S. (2003) Challenges of Social Good in the World of Grand Theft Auto and Barbie: Case Study of a Community Computer Center for Youth, New Media & Society 5(1): 95116. Colby, D. (2001) Closing the Digital Divide: the Imperative of Anonymous Networking, paper presented at the IAMCR/ICA Symposium on the Digital Divide, University of Texas at Austin, TX, November. DeNavas-Walt, C. and R.W. Cleveland (2002) Money Income in the United States: 2001, US Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60218. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Ofce. Gates, B. (1996) The Road Ahead. New York: Penguin. Gibson, T.A. (2000) Beyond Cultural Populism: Notes Toward the Critical Ethnography of Media Audiences, Journal of Communication Inquiry 24(3): 25373. Glaser, B.G. and A.L. Strauss (1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Goodwin, I. and S. Spittle (2002) The European Union and the Information Society: Discourse, Power and Policy, New Media & Society 4(2): 22550. Hall, S. (1980) Popular-democratic Versus Authoritarian-populism: Two Ways of Taking Democracy Seriously, in A. Hunt (ed.) Marxism and Democracy, pp. 15785. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
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LYNN SCHOFIELD CLARK is Assistant Research Professor at the University of Colorado and Director of the Teens and the New Media @ Home Project. Her book, From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media and the Supernatural was published by Oxford University Press in 2003. Address: University of Colorado, Boulder School of Journalism and Mass Communication, 1511 University Avenue, 478 UCB, Boulder CO 80309-0478, USA. [Email: Lynn.Clark@Colorado.edu] Please direct all correspondence to Lynn Schoeld Clark. CHRISTOF DEMONT-HEINRICH is a PhD candidate at the University of Colorado, Boulder School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His research interests include questions of 546
class, power and access as they relate to new media as well as the linguistic, cultural and mass communicative dimensions of globalization. Address: University of Colorado, Boulder School of Journalism and Mass Communication, 1511 University Avenue, 478 UCB, Boulder CO 80309-0478, USA. [email: christof.dermontheinrich@colorado.edu] SCOTT A. WEBBER is an independent researcher who was awarded his PhD from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His ethnographic research focuses on the use of computers and the internet in elementary schools. Address: 1071 Marion St. #8, Denver CO 80302, USA. [email: scottawebber@yahoo.com]
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Ethnographic Interviews On The Digital Divide

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New Media & Society

http://nms.sagepub.com Ethnographic Interviews on the Digital Divide

new media & society

Ethnographic interviews on the digital divide

LYNN SCHOFIELD CLARK CHRISTOF DEMONT-HEINRICH University of Colorado

SCOTT A. WEBBER Independent scholar

New Media & Society 6(4)

Schoeld Clark et al.: Digital divide interviews

New Media & Society 6(4)

Schoeld Clark et al.: Digital divide interviews

New Media & Society 6(4)

Schoeld Clark et al.: Digital divide interviews

New Media & Society 6(4)

Schoeld Clark et al.: Digital divide interviews

New Media & Society 6(4)

Schoeld Clark et al.: Digital divide interviews

New Media & Society 6(4)

Schoeld Clark et al.: Digital divide interviews

New Media & Society 6(4)

Schoeld Clark et al.: Digital divide interviews

New Media & Society 6(4)

Schoeld Clark et al.: Digital divide interviews

New Media & Society 6(4)

Schoeld Clark et al.: Digital divide interviews

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