Network Hopes

Abstract

In this work, the authors examine four cases of municipalities that have attempted to create municipal-sponsored wireless broadband networks. In each of these cases, one of the reasons given for establishing the network was to engage the citizens in their community and government. In each of these cases, the efforts have failed in some way. This problem rests on several assumptions. First, these municipalities believe in the importance and need to increase civic engagement, public participation in local government. They also believe that one way to do this is through increasing access to broadband Internet. In this article, we argue against a simplistic, deterministic, utopian view of information and communication technologies. We argue that in the case of local governments, choices made by government officials to solve social problems with technology are often made out of hope, frustration, inadequate funding, and inadequate knowledge. These public technology projects are often met with failure and often lead to further distance and mistrust between local governments, public officials, and citizens.T he purpose of this article is to illustrate the potential hazards of failed technologydriven efforts to increase civic engagement. In this work, we examine four cases of municipalities that have attempted to create municipal-sponsored wireless broadband networks. In each of these cases, one of the reasons given for establishing the network was to engage the citizens in their community and government. In each of these cases, the efforts have failed in some way. This problem rests on several assumptions. First, these municipalities believe in the importance and need to increase civic engagement, public participation in local government. They also believe that one way to do this is through increasing access to broadband Internet. This leads us to our central question, what do these very public failures mean for public technological projects and public support for increasing civic engagement and public participation in local government via technology?In this article, we argue against a simplistic, deterministic, utopian view of information and communication technologies. We argue that in the case of local governments, choices made by government officials to solve social problems with technology are often made out

Sociospatial context and information behavior: Social exclusion and the influence of mobile information technology

“…Recent research has, however, suggested that the influence of technology is complex. Tapia and Ortiz () explored four wireless broadband initiatives as part of a wider 10‐city analysis in the United States, which sought to enhance public participation and tackle wider social problems. Each initiative has been largely ineffective because of the technologically determinist approach adopted by local public officials, who presumed that social benefits would prevail if the infrastructure and support was provided.…”

“The real ethernet”: The transnational history of global Wi-Fi connectivity

“…The scholarship has mostly studied the present of Wi-Fi rather than its past. Wi-Fi networks have been researched in their role of building community networks and “bottom-up infrastructures” ( Crabu and Magaudda, 2017 ; Forlano, 2009 ; Meinrath, 2005 ; Shah and Sandvig, 2008 ); they have been studied through their public dimension ( Hampton and Gupta, 2008 ; Hampton et al, 2010 ; Powell, 2008 ; Tapia and Ortiz, 2010 ) and particular attention has been paid to their license-exempt position in the radio spectrum ( Werbach, 2003 ).…”

Nurturing non-market spaces in the digital environment

“…In this way Internet infrastructure is run like a public utility. The long-term feasibility of municipal broadband is still unclear as it has had its share of failures (see Tapia and Ortiz, 2010) as well as successes in Chattanooga, Tennessee (Wyatt, 2014) and Lafayette, Louisiana (Jervis, 2012).…”