Authors identify challenges and potentials for using new information technologies, such as the Internet, to help jobseekers in rural labour markets find employment. Social networks and telephone helplines were found to be used most at present.
Author examines the disadvantages, from the perspective of online connectivity, of those who do not speak English, those who live in rural areas and those who are disabled or technically challenged.
Apart from describing the shortage of mobile phones, the report indicates that growth in mobile phone usage is concentrated in urban areas and is "creating a widening communication gap between rural and urban communities."
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 151 Document Number: C24478
Notes:
Retrieved July 5, 2006, Conference sponsored by the International Association for Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD) in Nairobi, Kenya, May 21-26, 2006. Via Livelihoods Connect. 10 pages., Conference theme: "Managing agricultural information for sustainable food security and improved livelihoods in Africa."
Brown, Daniel James (author) and Centre for Community Networking Research, Monash University, Australia.
Format:
Thesis
Publication Date:
2009-09-03
Published:
Canada
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C30554
Notes:
Posted at http://www.ccnr.net/pratoconf2009/pdfs/brown.pdf, Master of Arts in Communications and Technology, Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta, Canada, September 3, 2009.. Presented at the Prato CIRN Community Informatics Conference, Prato, Italy, November 4-6, 2009. 100 pages.
Pollard, Kelvin (author), Jacobsen, Linda A. (author), and Population Reference Bureau (author)
Format:
Book chapter
Publication Date:
2021-06
Published:
United States: Appalachian Regional Commission
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12620
Journal Title Details:
Online
Notes:
Includes a series of charts and tables detailing personal computer and cellular ownership statistics for each county in Appalachia., 26 pgs, The data contained in this Chartbook describe how residents in the Appalachian Region were faring before the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020. As such, these numbers do not measure the social and economic impact of the outbreak. The Chartbook data do, however, provide a benchmark: As data from the pandemic and post pandemic period are released in the coming years, these figures can serve as a point of comparison that ultimately can enable data users to better measure the pandemic’s effect on Appalachia’s social and economic dynamics.
11 pages., Via online article, A “digital revolution” in agriculture is underway. Advanced technologies like sensors, artificial intelligence, and robotics are increasingly being promoted as a means to increase food production efficiency while minimizing resource use. In the process, agricultural digitalization raises critical social questions about the implications for diverse agricultural labourers and rural spaces as digitalization evolves. In this paper, we use literature and field data to outline some key trends being observed at the nexus of agricultural production, technology, and labour in North America, with a particular focus on the Canadian context. Using the data, we highlight three key tensions observed: rising land costs and automation; the development of a high-skill/low-skilled bifurcated labour market; and issues around the control of digital data. With these tensions in mind, we use a social justice lens to consider the potential implications of digital agricultural technologies for farm labour and rural communities, which directs our attention to racial exploitation in agricultural labour specifically. In exploring these tensions, we argue that policy and research must further examine how to shift the trajectory of digitalization in ways that support food production as well as marginalized agricultural labourers, while pointing to key areas for future research—which is lacking to date. We emphasize that the current enthusiasm for digital agriculture should not blind us to the specific ways that new technologies intensify exploitation and deepen both labour and spatial marginalization.
