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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

City Seclusion And Social Exclusion: How And Why Economic Disparities Harm Social Capital, Alina Oxendine Dec 2011

City Seclusion And Social Exclusion: How And Why Economic Disparities Harm Social Capital, Alina Oxendine

Alina Oxendine

forthcoming


The Importance Of Trust And Community In Developing And Maintaining A Community Electronic Network, Alina Oxendine, Eugene Borgida, John Sullivan, Melinda Jackson May 2003

The Importance Of Trust And Community In Developing And Maintaining A Community Electronic Network, Alina Oxendine, Eugene Borgida, John Sullivan, Melinda Jackson

Alina Oxendine

Focusing on two rural cities in Minnesota, this paper analyses ways in which these communities have gone about providing information technology to their citizens. This paper will explain why one city has chosen to take an entrepreneurial approach to networking and the other city has chosen a more collaborative approach, promoting equal access for its citizens. Based on interviews, focus groups, and surveys in the two cities, we find that these divergent approaches are related to fundamental cultural differences in the two communities. One city seems to have a more pronounced reservoir of social capital, meaning that people in this …


Social Capital And Electronic Networks: For Profit Vs. For Community Approaches, John Sullivan, Eugene Borgida, Melinda Jackson, Eric Riedel, Alina Oxendine, Amy Gangl Dec 2001

Social Capital And Electronic Networks: For Profit Vs. For Community Approaches, John Sullivan, Eugene Borgida, Melinda Jackson, Eric Riedel, Alina Oxendine, Amy Gangl

Alina Oxendine

In this article, the authors discuss the implementation of a community electronic network in a rural Minnesota town. The network is intended to help the community keep up with global technological progress by increasing access to the Internet. The current project compares this community approach to electronic networks with an economic, for-profit approach utilized in a nonequivalent control community. Drawing on the theory of social capital, the authors consider the relative impacts of privately oriented social engagement versus publicly oriented political engagement in relation to collective outcomes. The findings to date show that in the presence of a broadly based …


A Tale Of Two Towns: Assessing The Role Of Political Resources In A Community Electronic Network, John Sullivan, Eugene Borgida, Melinda Jackson, Eric Riedel, Alina Oxendine Dec 2001

A Tale Of Two Towns: Assessing The Role Of Political Resources In A Community Electronic Network, John Sullivan, Eugene Borgida, Melinda Jackson, Eric Riedel, Alina Oxendine

Alina Oxendine

In this study we examine responses to the recent expansion of information technology in two rural Minnesota towns. One of these towns took a cooperative approach to technology access, developing a community electronic network, while the other town relied on a more individualistic, entrepreneurial model. The present study examines citizens' attitudes concerning social, political, and technological issues in these two communities, with the goal of uncovering what kinds of attitudes and resources citizens need to have in order to help support and sustain a community electronic network. Structural equation modeling is used to specify the relationships among individuals' economic, political, …


Civic Culture Meets The Digital Divide: The Role Of Community Electronic Networks Dec 2001

Civic Culture Meets The Digital Divide: The Role Of Community Electronic Networks

Alina Oxendine

The concept of social capital reflects the norms and social relations embedded in the social structure of societies that enable people to coordinate community action to achieve desired goals. Our research focuses on the role that norms of cooperation and civic and political culture play in addressing the “digital divide” in computer use and Internet access. We review evidence from mail surveys of randomly selected respondents in two rural Minnesota communities as well as qualitative focus group and archival evidence suggesting that the communities have adopted different approaches to technology diffusion. Whether information technology is viewed as a public or …