Native Americans On Tribal Land Are 'The Least Connected' To High-Speed Internet; NPR, December 6, 2018

Hansi Lo Wang, NPR; Native Americans On Tribal Land Are 'The Least Connected' To High-Speed Internet

""The least connected"

The findings are no surprise to Traci Morris. She leads the American Indian Policy Institute at Arizona State University, which is preparing to release a report on a new study of broadband internet service on tribal lands.

"We're the least connected. We're under-connected. We're under-served," says Morris, a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma.

Mobile phones often are the main tools to help residents on American Indian land to get online, but many communities do not have reliable cell coverage nearby. On some reservations, Morris adds, residents rely on internet service at the local library, tribal office or school.

"Folks find a way to access it. Folks are resilient," she says. "But it shouldn't be this way in the U.S. We should have the same access as other folks, and if we don't, it's going to put us down a path of further have's and have not's."

A major obstacle to high-speed internet access on tribal land is the lack of infrastructure."

Is tech dividing America?; Politico, February 7, 2018

Nancy Scola, Politico; Is tech dividing America?

"Economists broadly agree that technology will continue to be an engine of economic growth. But it also will upend old certainties about who benefits. Already, we can see a growing inequality gap, with winners and losers by region and workplace. The next wave of changes, handled badly, could make this gap even more extreme.

MIT researcher David Autor has been at the center of that conversation for two decades now. One of the world’s premier labor economists, Autor has helped drive a reconsideration of how Americans are really coping with the changes transforming their workplaces. And he's trying to take the conversation beyond the ivory tower: His 2016 TED talk about the surprising impact of automation, “Why Are There Still So Many Jobs?” has been viewed more than 1.3 million times."

GRAPHIC: America's digital divide, in 2 maps; Politico, February 7, 2018

John Hendel and Tucker Doherty, Politico; GRAPHIC: America's digital divide, in 2 maps

[Kip Currier: Very timely data and information visualization, via these 2/7/18 Politico maps, for exploring thorny issues of Digital Divides and Access to Information in my Information Ethics class today.]

"The divide between America's haves and have nots is increasingly marked by technology. A broadband connection is a portal to jobs, to education, to consumer goods, to information and to other people. Yet huge swaths of the United States are still unconnected, particularly in rural areas. Some areas lack access to an internet connection at all. Others have service creaky to let a student take an online course, or an adult working from home to join a videoconference.

The two maps below illustrate both problems..."

How to Give Rural America Broadband? Look to the Early 1900s; New York Times, 8/7/16

Cecilia Kang, New York Times; How to Give Rural America Broadband? Look to the Early 1900s:

"“The technology is a little different but how we get broadband to homes is actually very similar to electric,” he said.

Since broadband service has started, signs of economic vitality have appeared in the region."