IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jftint/v3y2011i3p185-203d13248.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Internet as Digital Practice: Examining Differences in African American Internet Usage

Author

Listed:
  • Roderick Graham

    (Department of Sociology, Rhode Island College, 600 Mount Pleasant Avenue, Providence, RI 02908, USA)

  • Danielle Taana Smith

    (Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Rochester Institute of Technology, 18 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623, USA)

Abstract

This study assesses differences within the African American population with respect to internet activity. Using survey data, we find wide variations within the population. While some segments of African Americans are indeed less likely to perform certain activities on the internet, we note that certain segments of the African American population are reporting more internet activity than other racial groups. These ‘haves’ score high not just in comparison to their African American peers, but to the US American population as a whole. We suggest a move away from the digital divide/digital inequality models and a move towards thinking of greater or lesser Information and Communication Technology (ICT) usage as conditioned by the instrumental needs of population groups. We term this a digital practice model.

Suggested Citation

  • Roderick Graham & Danielle Taana Smith, 2011. "Internet as Digital Practice: Examining Differences in African American Internet Usage," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 3(3), pages 1-19, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:3:y:2011:i:3:p:185-203:d:13248
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/3/3/185/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/3/3/185/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vivian Cothey, 2002. "A longitudinal study of World Wide Web users' information‐searching behavior," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 53(2), pages 67-78.
    2. David Weerts & Justin Ronca, 2009. "Using classification trees to predict alumni giving for higher education," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 95-122.
    3. Soo Young Rieh, 2004. "On the Web at home: Information seeking and Web searching in the home environment," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 55(8), pages 743-753, June.
    4. Ernest J. Wilson III, 2004. "The Information Revolution and Developing Countries," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262232308, December.
    5. Leslie Haddon, 2006. "The contribution of domestication research to in-home computing and media consumption," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 62631, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Garofalo, R. & Herrick, A. & Mustanski, B.S. & Donenberg, G.R., 2007. "Tip of the iceberg: Young men who have sex with men, the internet, and HIV risk," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 97(6), pages 1113-1117.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Danielle Taana Smith, 2013. "African Americans and Network Disadvantage: Enhancing Social Capital through Participation on Social Networking Sites," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-11, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francesco Grillo & Mikel Landabaso, 2011. "Merits, problems and paradoxes of regional innovation policies," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 26(6-7), pages 544-561, September.
    2. Zdenek Smutny & Zdenek Sulc & Jan Lansky, 2021. "Motivations, Barriers and Risk-Taking When Investing in Cryptocurrencies," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(14), pages 1-22, July.
    3. Lisa Hightow-Weidman & Sara LeGrand & Seul Ki Choi & Joseph Egger & Christopher B Hurt & Kathryn E Muessig, 2017. "Exploring the HIV continuum of care among young black MSM," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(6), pages 1-20, June.
    4. Larson, James F. & Park, Jaemin, 2014. "From developmental to network state: Government restructuring and ICT-led innovation in Korea," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 344-359.
    5. James H. McAlexander & Harold F. Koenig & Beth DuFault, 2014. "Advancement in higher education: the role of marketing in building philanthropic giving," Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 243-256, December.
    6. Supunmali Ahangama, 2023. "Relating Social Media Diffusion, Education Level and Cybersecurity Protection Mechanisms to E-Participation Initiatives: Insights from a Cross-Country Analysis," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 25(5), pages 1695-1711, October.
    7. Frank Louis Kwaku Ohemeng & Kwaku Ofosu-Adarkwa, 2014. "Overcoming the Digital Divide in Developing Countries," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 30(3), pages 297-322, September.
    8. Durango-Cohen, Elizabeth J. & Torres, Ramón L. & Durango-Cohen, Pablo L., 2013. "Donor Segmentation: When Summary Statistics Don't Tell the Whole Story," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 172-184.
    9. Elizabeth Kaplun & Richard J. Martino & Kristen D. Krause & Michael Briganti & Paul A. D’Avanzo & Perry N. Halkitis, 2022. "Post-Exposure Prophylaxis and Methamphetamine Use among Young Sexual Minority Men: The P18 Cohort Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(2), pages 1, January.
    10. Sarah J. Miller & Sayward E. Harrison & Kamla Sanasi-Bhola, 2021. "A Scoping Review Investigating Relationships between Depression, Anxiety, and the PrEP Care Continuum in the United States," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-28, October.
    11. Rami Hodrab & Mansoor Maitah & Smutka Lubo, 2016. "The Effect of Information and Communication Technology on Economic Growth: Arab World Case," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 6(2), pages 765-775.
    12. Bao, Jingyuan & Durango-Cohen, Elizabeth J. & Levontin, Liat & Durango-Cohen, Pablo L., 2022. "Analysis of factors influencing recurring donations in a university setting: A compound poisson mixture regression model," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 489-503.
    13. Chakrapani, Venkatesan & Kaur, Manmeet & Tsai, Alexander C. & Newman, Peter A. & Kumar, Rajesh, 2022. "The impact of a syndemic theory-based intervention on HIV transmission risk behaviour among men who have sex with men in India: Pretest-posttest non-equivalent comparison group trial," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 295(C).
    14. Aftab Dean & John Graeme McLean, 2023. "Adopting Measures to Increase Alumni Donations at Prestigious Universities," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 16(12), pages 1-27, February.
    15. Xiangxuan XU, 2017. "The Contextual Dynamics of Internet of Things Applications in Smart Public Bike Sharing Services," Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies (CJUES), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(02), pages 1-20, June.
    16. Kirstin Krauss, 2013. "Collisions between the Worldviews of International ICT Policy-Makers and a Deep Rural Community in South Africa: Assumptions, Interpretation, Implementation, and Reality," Information Technology for Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 296-318, October.
    17. Randolph C. H. Chan & Don Operario & Winnie W. S. Mak, 2020. "Effects of HIV-Related Discrimination on Psychosocial Syndemics and Sexual Risk Behavior among People Living with HIV," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(6), pages 1-15, March.
    18. Pal, Abhipsa & Herath, Tejaswini & De', Rahul & Raghav Rao, H., 2021. "Why do people use mobile payment technologies and why would they continue? An examination and implications from India," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(6).
    19. Michel S. Laguerre, 2013. "Information technology and development: the Internet and the mobile phone in Haiti," Information Technology for Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 100-111, April.
    20. Donald G. Gardner & Jon L. Pierce, 2022. "The Psychology of Financial Giving: Values Congruence and Normative Organizational Commitment as Predictors of Alumni Monetary Donations to Higher Education," Societies, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-13, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:3:y:2011:i:3:p:185-203:d:13248. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.