Ethnicity, place, and communication technology

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the unique effect of ethnicity on people's internet connectedness. Internet connectedness is a multi‐dimensional relationship that individuals form with the internet.Design/methodology/approachSurvey findings from a study of four ethnic groups living in seven residential areas within ten miles from the Los Angeles Civic Center indicate that ethnicity has a significant unique effect not only on the rate of people's internet access, but also on the three dimensions of the internet connectedness index: context and history; scope and intensity; and centrality, after controlling for individual socio‐economic factors.FindingsThe results indicated that African‐Americans lagged behind other ethnic groups in all three dimensions of their internet connectedness. This suggests that the ways in which the internet is incorporated into people's everyday lives are likely to differ by geo‐ethnic areas.Originality/valueImplications of these results are discussed from a “communication infrastructure framework,” which provides an ecological framework to interpret the ethnic differences in the multiple dimensions of internet connectedness.