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Racial Gap Still Exists Online, Government Study Says

by Amar Toor on November 10, 2010 at 02:10 PM

graph from DOC report
Today, more people have access to broadband Internet than ever before. According to a new study (PDF link) from the Department of Commerce, however, Internet access is far from a guarantee in the U.S. -- especially for racial minorities.

The report, which was published on Monday, finds that 68-percent of white households have high-speed Internet, compared with just 49-percent of African-American homes, and 48-percent of Hispanic families. Furthermore, when variables like income and education are removed from the equation, white people are still 10-percent more likely to have Internet access than African-Americans. "A lot of people assume these disparities are due just to income and education, but there seems to be more going on than that," Darrell West, founding director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, told CNN. "It's not clear exactly what explains those differences, but the numbers suggests it's not just income that creates the digital divide."

Researchers have yet to determine what factors may be at work behind the racial divide, but some have offered hypotheses. Co-author Rebecca Blank theorizes that the gap may arise, in part, from online social networks. "The Internet is all about being part of [a] network of people who are also using the Internet," Blank said. If the rest of the people in someone's network of friends don't regularly use the Internet, they may feel compelled to maintain the status quo. Aaron Smith, a senior research specialist with the Pew Internet & American Life Project, speculates that language may also pose a barrier -- especially for Spanish-speaking households.

Race, therefore, plays a statistically significant (if inexplicable) role in determining an individual's level of Internet access. But, as the Commerce Department points out, however, factors like education and income level still weigh more heavily. "Controlling for various non-income attributes, the gap between households with incomes greater than $100,000 and those with incomes less than $25,000 totals 34 percentage points," the report reads. "Similarly, the controlled gap for those with at least college degrees versus those with no high school diplomas tallies 29 percentage points." And, as Smith points out, the racial divide has lessened over time, thanks in large part to the online access that mobile devices now provide.

The fact remains, however, that many of the social inequalities that plague society continue to divide the Internet, as well. Now, it's up to governmental regulatory agencies to come up with ways to bridge the gap. It's an agenda that the FCC has been pushing for quite some time -- and, in the wake of this report, we hope it becomes an even higher priority.

Tags: broadband, DepartmentOfCommerce, FCC, InternetAccess, politics, race, racial, study, top

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