Publications & Reports
ICA 2021 Post-conference
Problems of digital exclusion have traditionally been associated with lack of access to technology. Increasingly digital exclusion also emerges with the active agency of state and corporate institutions using AI, smart city infrastructures, surveillance systems and...
New Disinformation Research
Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election has expanded discussions about the role of misinformation in politics as well as people’s information behavior. While many studies have been conducted to unravel the strategies and impacts of the Russian IRA’s...
New Media in the International Context: Global Fusion 2019
Organized and hosted by graduate students from The University of Texas at Austin Department of Radio-Television-Film, this year’s Global Fusion Conference took place in Austin, Texas, from Friday, October 25th to Sunday, October 27th, in the Belo Center for New Media....
Library Hotspot Lending: Report to the Tocker Foundation
Based on our work with libraries in in other parts of the country (see: NYPL Hotspot Assessment and IMLS Rural Hotspots), we wanted to partner with Texas libraries in to pilot hotspot programs. We believe libraries, as anchor institutions, have an outsize role to play...
TIPI Team Travels to TPRC 47
TIPI awarded Richelle Crotty a travel fellowship to TRPC47 to present her poster: Fallow Fields or Unyielding Potential? An Examination of EBS Proposed Rulemaking Comments and the Public Interest. Abstract Regulatory frameworks are in place that fund the distribution...
TIPI Teams with UT Austin’s IC² to Study Relationship Between Broadband and Economic Outcomes in Rural Areas
Several years ago, Sharon Strover met with many local economic development people throughout various Texas towns. They all said, “I want this town to be attractive enough for my kids to come back here when they want to raise their families.” That was not going to...
At the Edges of the National Digital Platform: COMMUNITY ATTITUDES TOWARD RURAL LIBRARIES
STROVER, SHARON, PI; BRIAN WHITACRE, COLIN RHINESMOTH, CO-PI; ALEXIS SCHRUBBE AND GERMAN ALVAREZ, RESEARCHERS Supported by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, Grant #31-16-0014-16Introduction The Technology & Information Policy Institute at the...
Scoping New Policy Frameworks for Local Broadband Networks
Sharon Strover, Martin J. Riedl and Selena Dickey submitted a paper to TPRC47: Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy. The paper is an outgrowth of the TIPI's Facebook Community Networks project. The team will present on Friday,...
Report: Digital Inclusion in Austin
A team of researchers under the supervision of professors Joseph Straubhaar and Sharon Strover conducted the Austin Digital Assessment Survey for the City of Austin to assess internet usage in Austin. The team sent 11,000 surveys to random Austin addresses and...
Report: The digital inclusion role of rural libraries: social inequalities through space and place
Abstract: A great deal of scholarship on broadband deployment and federal policies has positioned rural America through a deficit framework: rural parts of the country have older populations (and therefore not tech savvy), are poor (and therefore justifiably ignored by the market), too remote (therefore outside of legitimate profit-making enterprise), and losing population (and therefore significance). This research examines rural Internet connectivity through the lens of local libraries lending hotspots for Internet connectivity. Qualitative data gathered in 24 rural communities in Kansas and Maine undercut simplistic notions regarding how communication systems operate in environments ignored by normative market operations. Financial precarity and pressures from social and economic institutions compel rurally based individuals and families to assemble piecemeal Internet presence and connectivity. The public library plays a crucial role in providing Internet resources and stands out in the rural environment as a site that straddles public trust and local.