Internet Access and Innovation-Diffusion in a National Cancer Institute Preventive Health Education Project: Telecenters, Cybercafes, and Sociodemographic Impacts on Knowledge Gaps

Abstract

Policymakers and analysts cite the availability of free Internet telecenters at libraries and community centers as a viable way to close the so-called knowledge gap and the digital divide among minority and poor communities. This study looks at policymakers’ dissemination of a National Cancer Institute (NCI) Web-based, preventive health education intervention to low-income people in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado through free Internet access. Although free public access Internet telecenters would appear to offer the potential of bridging these gaps, knowledge and information gaps persist because of the differentials between free and pay Internet access, as well as access through direct personal ownership of computers with Internet connections. The rate of increase of knowledge diffusion is much higher for individuals and communities of higher socioeconomic status who pay for access than for those with lesser means and who access free electronic resources. Pay-for-Internet cybercafes and free Internet telecenters have different accessibility thresholds, offer different user environments, and attract at least two different types of customers or clients.The socioeconomic differences in the two types of patrons are presented in this study by way of the results of an electronic user survey and a telecenter survey in the aforementioned project locales. While a learning and knowledge gap is evident between patrons of pay and free access sites, both types of public Internet access are, in relative terms, severely limited. Residually, a large knowledge gap persists among users of public access sites compared to computer owners with their own Internet connections. These disparities have implications for the dissemination of Web-based health information, particularly among the poor in minority communities.The Internet access evaluation is placed in the larger context of the NCI project, the Health Communication Intervention Research Initiative, looking (1) at broader concerns of cultural communications and policy and program implementation (2) across social and programmatic networks, with consideration to (3) pedagogical applications of the case in the MPA classroom.