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Rural Community Participation, Social Networks, and Broadband Use: Examples from Localized and National Survey Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Michael J. Stern ,
Alison E. Adams  and
Jeffrey Boase
Michael J. Stern
Affiliation:
The Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina
Alison E. Adams
Affiliation:
The Department of Sociology at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida;
Jeffrey Boase
Affiliation:
The Department of Communication at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey
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Abstract

Although attention has been given to how broadband access is related to economic development in rural areas, scant consideration has been given to how it may be associated with voluntary participation. This issue is important in that numerous studies have shown how much more vital community participation is in rural areas as compared to suburban and urban places. Drawing on three diverse data sets, we examine the influence of broadband access on community participation. In addition, we explore whether broadband access exerts its influence through, in conjunction with, or independent of social networks. The results suggest that broadband access and social network size have independent effects on volunteering in rural places.

Keywords

rural sociologysocial networksbroadbanddigital inequalityvolunteerism
Type
Rural Development and Broadband Use
Information
Agricultural and Resource Economics Review , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , August 2011 , pp. 158 - 171
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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