Copps: Too many Americans not online

Speaking at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies' Media and Technology Policy Forum, Federal Communications Commission member Michael Copps said:

Last week's Joint Center Report on National Broadband Minority Adoption helps us understand more about where we are in this country. While we see continued adoption among minorities, we also learn -- and this is a quote from the Report -- "Those Americans who stand to gain the most from the Internet are unable to use it to break the cycles of social isolation, poverty, and illiteracy." So those segments of the population most weighed down by economic and social hardship are the very ones denied the digital access they need to improve their lot. They're not part of the growing digital information ecosystem of the Twenty-first century. They are African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, disabled Americans, poor Americans, rural Americans, inner city Americans -- let's just say: too many Americans.

With so many individuals and communities still left behind, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that the Internet that's taking shape doesn't yet look quite like the diverse America so many of you in this room are trying to nurture. As recent scholarship is beginning to show-and this may sound blunt but I think there's more than a little to it-the folks who are most active and who are the major players on the Net are, more often than not, better off economically and more highly educated than the rest of us, and they are also more often white and male than the nation as a whole. One very stimulating book on this subject is Matthew Hindman's The Myth of Digital Democracy. On top of that, it is companies with scale and power who configure the routes and determine where we all go-or are directed to go-when we log on in search of whatever it is we're searching for.