Journal of Community Informatics

Tribal Digital Sovereignty has emerged as a definitive governance framework for Tribal Nations, evolving from decades of work by scholars and practitioners at the intersection of federal Indian law, telecommunications, digital equity, and tribal self-determination. The COVID-19 pandemic served as a pivotal catalyst for this evolution, recasting broadband from a luxury to an essential lifeline and exposing deep-seated disparities in connectivity.

Digital exclusion is a challenge in rural North Carolina, where agriculture is the leading industry. Agricultural workers such as migrant and seasonal farmworkers are disproportionately impacted by digital exclusion. As part of an effort to address digital exclusion, funders and state agencies in NC have promoted the development of county and regional plans for digital inclusion. From July 2023 to July 2024, we identified a total of 30 digital inclusion plans that covered 50 of NC’s 100 counties.

Community networks risk failure when they attempt to emulate models from elsewhere without engaging the community in the process and making appropriate adaptations. These ‘build it and they will come’ models rarely work over the long term. This research project explored claims from residents of a low-income neighbourhood in the “North End” of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, that inadequate and unaffordable Internet connectivity limits their access to critical communication tools, resources, and information.

This study examines how municipal governments have constructed the concept of digital equity through textual evidence, the digital equity plans of Kansas City (MO), Portland (OR), San Francisco (CA), and Seattle (WA). Adopting an approach from critical discourse studies, comparative analysis of the texts demonstrates how digital equity plans conceive of digital equity, characterize current problematic circumstances, and prescribe actions to make change.

The term digital equity is at the forefront of municipal government planning to mitigate digital equity. Digital equity signifies a desired future to be achieved, yet its meaning is not well-established. As such, planning for digital equity offers an opportunity for new discursive construction. This study examines how municipal governments have constructed the concept of digital equity through textual evidence, the digital equity plans of Kansas City (MO), Portland (OR), San Francisco (CA), and Seattle (WA).