qualitative study is designed, in part, to fill in some of the knowledge gaps related to the rapidly changing dynamics of black and Latino teen participation in the digital media world. Whereas quantitative data can tell us how much time black and Latino teens spend on social media on a given day, qualitative data can tell us what they do when using social media. Furthermore, qualitative approaches can offer more in-depth perspective on the context and conditions in which black and Latino teens are using technology. This last point is especially crucial because the settings in which teens use technology—in school, at home, with peers—are in constant flux and situate different opportunities for engagement.
But even as access to the Internet for black and Latino teens has improved over the years, this does not mean that all forms of access are equal. Young people’s Internet-related activities continue to be influenced, for example, by race and ethnicity, parental education, and the quality of schools they attend. Black and Latino youth are much more likely than their white and Asian counterparts to grow up in homes without access to broadband Internet. Parental education often influences, for example, the kinds of social ties and support systems their children have access to. Black and Latino youth are also more likely to attend schools that offer limited access to classes, instructors, and learning opportunities that develop the technical and cognitive skills that align with a rapidly evolving knowledge economy. It is also true that black and Latino youth carve out their own distinct spaces for identity and community in the digital spaces that are transforming youth culture and everyday life. In this chapter we offer a framework for understanding the agency that Latino and black youth assert in the making of their social and mobile media lives but in relation to structural conditions that are not of their own making.
In the United States (and around the world) we are witnessing a social transformation as a greater diversity of youth than ever before are using Internet-based technologies and networks. Today, black and Latino youth spend more time using social and mobile media than their white counterparts, a fact that no one would have dared to predict just a few years ago.2 Still, access to technology does not necessarily lead to greater digital media literacy or, as we discuss throughout this book, social and economic opportunity. Similarly, access to media technology does not guarantee access to the forms of capital—social and cultural—that are the crucial gateway to educational achievement, economic development, and political engagement.
Immersion in the everyday schooling and learning lives of black and Latino teens confirmed that poor and low-income families are significantly more likely to have access to Internet-based platforms than they were ten years ago. However, access to social and digital media technologies remains tenuous for young people growing up in resource-constrained homes, communities, and schools. Lose a phone and one could go several weeks or months before getting a replacement. Rapid changes in hardware and software can often leave members in modest-income households stuck with outdated devices, defunct applications, and limited computing and network capacity. Faced with the choice of providing food for the family or having Internet access, a working parent makes the obvious choice, which means that Internet service at home is disrupted. These are the everyday struggles that the families and teens in the digital edge had to contend with. And while economic constraints did not completely stall the desires of black and Latino teens to participate in digital media culture, they certainly shaped them.
Remapping the Digital Divide
The digital divide is made up of many distinct components. Much has changed from the period when the digital divide was largely understood as a matter of access to computers.3 The need for a more meticulous mapping of ongoing digital disparities is driven by technological and sociological change. First, the sheer pace and intensity of technological change necessitate new questions and analytical frameworks. For example, the platforms for participating in digital media cultures are evolving at a fierce pace. Smarter, smaller, and more affordable technologies (e.g., mobile devices) are radically expanding who participates in the digital world. Second, the divide is being remade as a result of significant social changes, characterized by new modes of adoption and participation, creative activity, civic imaginations, and entrepreneurial energy. Populations that were once figured as disconnected from the digital world are rendering such claims inadequate as they assert their own vision of life in the digital age.
The assorted ways in which Freeway students accessed and used media technologies complicate conventional theorizations of the digital divide, especially the notion of monolithic practices, impacts, and outcomes. There was substantial variation in the social and mobile media practices among the largely Latino, African American, and English-language-learning student body that populated the classrooms at Freeway. These differences make any reference to a single digital divide experience unsatisfactory. As our knowledge about life in the digital edge continues to evolve, it is clear that multiple dimensions of the digital divide exist. In this chapter and throughout the book we focus on three distinct yet interlocking aspects of digital inequality: the access gap, the participation gap, and the digital literacy or skills gap.
Internet Access
The issue of access to computers and the Internet has grown more complex over the years. Internet access is no longer simply a matter of whether a teen, for instance, has access to a computer and an Internet connection. Access varies in terms of the type of connection, including broadband, mobile, and high- or low-capacity networks. Lower-income families are much more likely than their higher-income counterparts to have mobile-only access to the Internet.4 And while mobile has accelerated the pace of Internet access for lower-income populations, a reliance only on mobile for Internet connectivity poses many challenges. More specifically, the challenges are not necessarily related to access but rather quality of access and opportunities for diverse forms of participation.
Additionally, there is the question of not only how we access the Internet but where we access the Internet. Interestingly enough, the social and physical spaces of Internet connectivity significantly influence the quality of the experience and the kinds of opportunities a person is likely to have. In our study, access to the Internet came in the two primary spaces teens spend their time, home and school. The main advantage of home broadband connections is the opportunity to pursue interests and creative practices in a more deliberate fashion. Teens who grow up in broadband households are more likely than teens who do not to do a wider range of things online, develop richer forms of online social capital, and be producers rather than mere consumers of digital content.
Public settings like libraries, for instance, often restrict how much time teens can spend on computers as well as the kinds of creative activities they can pursue. In the Austin metropolitan area suburb that was the setting for our study, public libraries or community technology centers were essentially off-limits due to transportation and quality of service issues. Inadequate public transit options in poor suburbs make it difficult to get around.5
Many of the students that expressed an interest in digital media desired a place that allowed them to tinker, play, and collaborate with peers. Libraries and community technology centers often restrict opportunities for more social creative digital media practices. For most of the students in our in-depth cases, school—and more specifically, after-school time—emerged as a fertile space and opportunity to gain access to not only hardware and software but also a social and creative milieu that supported deeper forms of digital engagement, media production, and peer collaboration. These latter elements underscore what we might call network effects, that is, the importance of having access to a diverse and dynamic set of social ties that support deep learning, thinking, and making with digital media.
Participation
When teens gain access to the Internet, the all-important question, How do they use it? comes to the forefront. Even as access to the Internet is spreading, not all forms of access and participation are equal. Researchers are beginning to map the various modes
