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Analysis: No logs, low broadband connectivity rates lead to additional labor costs

One resident said his county rarely appears in the news cycle. Another said he was paying hundreds of dollars for broadband internet service.

These are just some of the takeaways from a qualitative study that examined how Virginia’s Surry County coped with being both an information wasteland and a broadband wasteland. .

“We really wanted to see it as a combination. Because frankly, that intersection hadn’t really been explored in academia, and really not that much in mainstream publications either,” said Nick Mathews, one of the researchers behind the study, in an interview with the Daily Yonder, which looked at Surry County. . With a population of just over 7,000, there is no daily or weekly newspaper, and as of June 2019 only 3.65% of Surry County residents had broadband internet access.

The study, titled “Desert Work: Life and Labor in a News and Broadband Desert,” was conducted by Mathews, incoming assistant professor of digital journalism at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and former longtime journalist, and Christopher Ali, the next Pioneer Professor of Telecommunications at Pennsylvania State University’s Bellisario College of Communications.

What the two researchers found is that there are several layers of work involved in the consumption of information within the community studied: informational, infrastructural and emotional.

“In the news and broadband desert of Surry County, residents felt ignored and expressed feelings of fear and frustration,” according to the study. “Not only are there no journalists stationed in Surry County, but residents perceive that Surry County is rarely mentioned in regional newspapers, television and radio reports.”

Additionally, with no reliable high-speed Internet service and no news outlets available to promote businesses, residents told researchers they feared for the county’s economic future and a declining population.

“In this crossroads, where people don’t have a newspaper that really covers their neighborhood [and] have a lack of broadband access that allows them to easily connect to the outside world, in many ways their life is more difficult,” Mathews said.

For example, Mathews said that in some cases, due to data caps, families were being forced to choose between allowing their children to be entertained or using the internet for work.

Regarding logs and the lack of logs, he said it shows residents have to “manage on their own”.

“They in many ways have to act as journalists,” he said. “They had to have their own Rolodex if something happened in the community and nobody was covering it, they basically had to rely on other residents. So if you don’t have those relationships, if you haven’t lived in the community for a while to have those kinds of relationships with someone who actually knows what’s going on in the community, the way you get any news is purely coincidental.”

The local Dollar General, he said, became the de facto information center, where community members gathered to share information about what was happening.

“This gentleman basically said these clerks were the reporters for this county because they were able to put all this information together. And that marked me a lot, ”he added.

Mathews will conduct further study on the matter, and he said he hopes others will undertake similar research in rural America.

“There’s not as much attention being paid to rural America and rural areas of the world as we need to be,” Mathews said. “Rural areas and rural people in general are misunderstood. Their life is not understood. People don’t understand what is going on in their daily lives – when they face problems when there is no media coverage when there is no broadband access. People don’t necessarily understand how it affects someone, how it silences them, what it means to them emotionally, and what it means for the future of their county.

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Analysis: No Logs, Low Broadband Connectivity Rates Lead to Additional Labor Costs

A resident said his county rarely appears in the news cycle. Another said he was paying hundreds of dollars for high-speed internet service. broadband desert.

“We really wanted to look at that as a combination. Because frankly, that intersection hadn’t really been explored in academia, and really not that much in mainstream publications either,” said Nick Mathews, the one of the researchers behind the study, in an interview with the Daily Yonder, which looked at Surry County. With a population of just over 7,000, there is no daily or weekly, and as of June 2019, only 3.65% of Surry County residents had broadband internet access.

The study, titled “Work in the Desert: Living and Working in an Information and Broadband Desert”, was led by Mathews, incoming assistant professor of digital journalism at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and longtime former journalist, and Christopher Ali, new president of the Telecommunications Pioneers at Bellisario College of Communications at State University. of Pennsylvania.

What the two researchers found is that there are several levels of work involved in the consumption of information within the community studied: informational, infrastructural and emotional.

“In Surry County’s broadband and information wilderness, residents felt ignored and expressed feelings of fear and frustration,” according to the study. “Not only are there no journalists stationed in Surry County, but residents perceive that Surry County is rarely mentioned in regional newspapers, television and radio reports.”

Additionally, with no reliable high-speed internet service and no new organizations available to promote businesses, residents told researchers they feared for the county’s economic future and a declining population. [and] have a lack of broadband access that allows them to easily connect to the outside world, in many ways their life is more difficult,” Mathews said.

For example, Mathews said that in some cases, due to data caps, families have been forced to choose between allowing their children to be entertained or using the internet for work.

Regarding the logs and the lack of one, he said it shows residents have to “manage on their own”.

“They in many ways have to act as journalists,” he said. “They had to have their own Rolodex if something happened in the community and nobody was covering it, they basically had to rely on other residents. So if you don’t have those relationships, if you haven’t lived in the community for a while to have those kinds of relationships with someone who actually knows what’s going on in the community, the way you get any news is purely coincidental.”

The local Dollar General, he said, became the de facto information center, where community members gathered to share information about what was happening.

“This This gentleman basically said that these clerks were the reporters for this county because they were able to pull all this information together. And that really stuck with me,” he added.

Mathews will conduct further study on the matter, and he said he hopes others will undertake similar research in rural America.

“There’s not as much attention given to rural America and rural areas around the world as we need to,” Mathews said. “Rural areas and rural people in general are misunderstood. Their life is not understood. People don’t understand what is going on in their daily lives – when they face problems when there is no media coverage when there is no broadband access. People don’t necessarily understand how it affects someone, how it silences them, what it means to them emotionally, and what it means for the future of their county. »

This the article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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