Pini, Barbara (author / Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia), Previte, Josephine (author / University of Queensland, Department of Economics, Queensland, Brisbane, Australia), and Hearn, Greg (author / Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia)
Format:
Paper
Publication Date:
2003-07
Published:
Australia
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 147 Document Number: C23546
Lennie, June (author / Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia) and Hearn, Greg (author / Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia)
Format:
Paper
Publication Date:
2003-07
Published:
Australia
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 147 Document Number: C23545
18 pgs, Access to information and resources via the Internet is an increasingly vital dimension of contemporary life. However, there can be several impediments to optimal Internet utilization in the form of access, skills, and motivation. Even when access is available, several digital inequalities arise as citizens often lack the skills and motivations to pursue those vital uses through the Internet to the best of their advantage. Digital inequalities in the hills of the Appalachian area of Ohio are often manifested in terms of social, cultural and geographic divides. Not only do the hills block wireless signals and make cables expensive to install, but regional poverty also drives away telecom investment. We conducted a survey of Appalachian Ohio to explore digital inequity issues and the determinants of online participation for things that matter. Through a number of analyses, we explore how Internet access and digital skills impact online contribution to the community in terms of services and resources considered to be basic social needs: health, employment, education, and social media. These social needs, what we have called Vital Internet Use (VIU) can determine citizens’ political and civic participation, societal contribution, and overall benefit to their communities. Centered on the concepts of digital access, Internet skills, and benefit outcomes, we extend knowledge in this domain and propose a comprehensive framework of VIU.
18 pages, Based on panel data from the Rural Fixed Point Survey of the Ministry of
Agriculture over the period 2004-2016 and supplementary survey data on information
and communications technology (ICT) applications in the countryside, this paper employs
the difference in differences (DID) method to analyze the effects of ICT applications on
rural households’ agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) with mobile phone signal,
internet and 3G mobile network connections as indicators, and decomposes and evaluates
the constituent factors. Our findings reveal a positive effect of ICTs on rural households’
TFP, which primarily stemmed from rising agricultural technical efficiency. However, ICTs
exerted no significant effect on agricultural technical progress during this paper’s data
period due to limited rural human capital. These findings are consistent with robustness test
results based on counterfactual and matching methods.
