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March 23, 2005
The Info Poor
[Caveat: it's long and rambling and disjointed, in part from being stuck in my head for too long. My apologies if it makes little to no sense ...]
I happily recommend the notes from Jessamyn West's talk on the information poor earlier this week at UNC. Jeff Pomerantz also has a nice set of notes about the talk. It's not that Jessamyn's other presentations leave me cold ... by no means. But the info poor has been on my mind for a long time.
Jessamyn's focus is on a rural population. My concerns (which are still vague, so I'm not about to present a manifesto here) are on urban, lower-class communities. Others are especially concerned about the information (and other) needs of the homeless or language minorities. There is some controversy over whether the Digital Divide still exists, but the info poor and the info apathetic predate and will outlive the divide.
Mind you, I do not plan to become, nor am I qualified to be, an advocate on such issues. I am a policy geek and a slave to theory. I'm more than willing (and even able) to talk copyright all day long. And yet, when I sense that people are being left behind in the race for new, better, faster info dissemination, it gets to me. And when those people get written off as simply not having the right priorities ... it bugs me.
Last summer, I had the grand and glorious opportunity to intern at a large newspaper. Part of the experience were weekly intern lunchs where we had guest speakers from various departments of the newspaper. One week, the publisher spoke at length with us about the future of U.S. newspapers. It was an interesting talk -- he talked about personalization and customization and niches, the downward spiral of "broadcast" journalism (as in one newspaper for a vast, diverse population) and subscription models of tiers of content + value-added services. But during the Q&A, I had to ask (as the most media-inexperienced person in the room, AND a librarian): what about your poor readers? How do you plan to keep relevant coverage and an affordable product for those least able but most in need of it?
People were more than slightly confused. And mostly silent. But one of the HR people countered with (paraphrasing): I have gone to visit relatives in a really poor, disadvantaged section of Baton Rouge (?), and there's a satellite dish on every single home/apt. building/etc. People don't buy the newspaper because they can't afford it, but because they don't want it -- the implication being that if they end up missing out on important information that's relevant to their work/lives/environment, then perhaps they shouldn't have put out for the premium subscriptions for 4 ESPN channels instead of taking out a newspaper subscription. For some, that may be true. For others, it's not. (We ended up playing "Trump the Poor Relations" -- I pointed out that my mother has never had cable.)
The person who pointed this out wasn't being callous. The publisher wasn't being greedy. The people who talk about being on the cutting (or bleeding) edge of technology and information distribution without mention of those who lag behind aren't being elitist. I wouldn't even venture to say that they are wrong.
But when I look at what's being talked about in this brave new world of grassroots journalism, podcasting and new media, I worry that some people are already being, and will continue to be, left in the wake of these changes. I'm very relieved that people like Jessamyn are willing to make a case for, and work with, the information poor.
Posted by misseli at March 23, 2005 05:58 PM
Comments
Thank you for posting about biases about the info poor. It really struck a chord for me. I work at a large urban library that serves as the digital bridge for many of our citizens. I've actually heard staff complain about people coming in to use our PCs: "Why don't they get one of their own? They can afford it. They just don't want to spend their money." It seems clear to me why someone would not want to support a PC with broadband access (let alone 150 electronic resources), and I'm not talking about money. I do "daughter technical support" long distance for my mother. She can't diagnose what's wrong with her printer, or understand her modem settings. She is intelligent and has resources. Rochelle at http://mazar.ca/ has been making me thing about people's understanding of Google. Though I want to think about the implications of FRBR, I think I have to stop and think more about the intersections of people and technology. People who think everyone will have a smart phone soon shouldn't be making all the decisions about technology in libraries.
Posted by: lislemck at March 25, 2005 08:38 AM
Not long enough, in my opinion; I'd love to see more from you!
I think those of us who are concerned about the information poor may be able to agree that's it's largely a question of (lower-) class, whether that's broken out by race, language, immigration status, rural/urban, or what have you.
It seems to me that as usual, being "information poor" is yet another facet of being poor, period. Doubtless it has not escaped notice that the only people whose access to technology is mediated by filtering that distorts searching and information seeking are poor people. Schools and libraries, the institutions that provide Internet access to those who don't/can't purchase it on their own, are the ones that have to deal with the problem. No one I know of has seriously suggested that any parent with minor children and a computer in his/her home should be obliged to filter, yet presumably what's bad for kids on a public computer is bad for kids on a private one. The idea of blocking access to people who can afford to pay is almost literally inexpressible. We are so used to denying by economic class and its concomitants (race, language, etc.) that the denial is invisible to us.
All the technology is, as usual, a tool that can be used by those who know how. It will not equalize anything; it will simply perpetuate inequality in yet another field - unless the multifaceted and underlying inequality is addressed.
Posted by: Marti at October 27, 2005 11:06 PM