Vikki S. Katz

Community Variations in Low-Income Latino Families’ Technology Adoption and Integration

Constrained access to the Internet and new communication technologies is commonly associated with social disparities related to income, education, immigration status, age, and geography. Policymakers in many sectors—and particularly, in education—have placed their bets on increased technology access having the potential to mitigate broader social disparities. In the context of a national digital equity initiative, this study examines how parents and children of low-income Latino families incorporate new technologies into their everyday lives. Through a comparison of three demographically similar communities where discounted broadband is being offered to low-income families with school-age children, we take a bottom-up, communication-centered perspective on a top-down technology policy. Our ecological approach considers the intersection of macro- and meso-level factors that influence Latino families’ perceptions of technology and that shape their consequent adoption and integration decisions.

Researching children, intersectionality, and diversity in the digital age

Abstract Research on children’s and adolescents’ experiences with media and technology over the past century has largely echoed the concerns of the middle-class and majority culture. We discuss scholars’ corrective efforts, particularly in recent years, in moving beyond these narrow foci to investigate how young people situated across social classes, racial and ethnic boundaries, and forms of disability engage with new media. In particular, we examine how scholars have conceptualized similarities and differences among children and families in relation to interconnected systems of oppression and privilege. We discuss how their work has challenged deficit-based approaches to cultural and social difference to understand how diverse families and young people actively negotiate media and technologies in everyday life. We argue that an intersectional, asset-oriented approach to studying the lived experiences of youth and families opens exciting new avenues for research that prioritizes the rights of children and adolescents in the digital age.

An Ecological Perspective on U.S. Latinos’ Health Communication Behaviors, Access, and Outcomes

U.S. Latinos experience constrained access to formal health care resources, contributing to higher incidence of preventable diseases and chronic health conditions than the general population. The authors explore whether a rich set of informal health communication connections—to friends, family, radio, television, Internet, newspapers, magazines, churches, and community organizations—can compensate, even partially, for not having access to doctors. The authors find no evidence of any such compensatory mechanism among respondents to the Pew Hispanic Center/Robert Wood Johnson Latino Health Survey (N = 3,899). Analyses revealed that the informal health communication ecologies of respondents with favorable immigration/nativity status and greater income, education, and language proficiencies were more diversified than those of respondents reporting less favorable social status. Further analyses revealed that diversified informal health communication ecologies related to health care access (regular doctor visits, uninterrupted health insurance, and regular health care location) and favorable health outcomes (self-ratings of general health, health-related efficacy, and knowledge of diabetes symptoms).

Communication in City and Community: From the Chicago School to Digital Technology

The study of urban and community issues from a communication perspective has a long history that can be traced back to the Chicago School of Sociology. The Chicago scholars were interested in the role of ecology in social change, but they also wanted to understand how changes in communication technology influenced the everyday lives of individuals, their families, and communities. The sociologists of the Chicago School considered public opinion and communication to be “inseparable from the School’s broader inquiry into ‘collective behavior’ and its part in social order and disorder” (Pooley & Katz, 2008, p. 767). James Carey (1996) called their approach “the most useful view of communication and the mass media in the American tradition” (p. 30). The intellectual connection between the study of communication and the study of city and community was instrumental for addressing the social and intellectual problems of the time. By mid-century, however, the uncoupling of sociology and communication was well underway. Communication research focused increasingly on the study of propaganda, campaigns, media events, and media effects (Katz, 2009). From these roots, communication became a distinct field, influenced more by social psychologists than sociologists (Pooley & Katz, 2008). Within communication research, sociological questions about the role of communication technologies in community and ecological perspectives on communication processes and social change (e.g., Park & Burgess, 1925) began to fade from view. The split between sociology and communication has had consequences for scholars in both fields. As these traditions moved further from each other, sociologists concerned with local ecologies, place, and “neighborhood effects” (Sampson, 2012; Sampson, Morenoff, & Gannon-Rowley, 2002), have generally neglected the role of

Communication Resources for Obesity Prevention Among African American and Latino Residents in an Urban Neighborhood

African Americans and Latinos are at disproportionately high risk for obesity and for the chronic conditions and diseases associated with it. This study uses communication infrastructure theory to explore how connections to neighborhood communication resources and communication with family members can affect residents’ regular exercise and healthy eating behaviors—two of the most direct strategies for achieving or maintaining a healthy weight. Regression analyses revealed that connections to the neighborhood storytelling network and family interaction predicted residents’ regular exercise and that family interaction had the strongest effect on the likelihood of exercising regularly. Family interaction was the only independent variable that predicted residents’ daily intake of fruits and vegetables. Implications of these findings for community health programs and theory development are discussed.

Communication Dynamics of Immigrant Integration

Researchers across disciplines share an enduring interest in the social impacts of immigration. I review key intersections between communication and immigrant integration scholarship in order to demonstrate how communication research and theory can address gaps in the literature on immigrant integration. These applications also reveal how communication theories, when extended to the integration experiences of immigrants and their children, more robustly reflect the increasing diversity of our globalizing societies. The conclusion provides suggestions for future inquiry at the nexus of these fields.

Connecting with technology in lower-income US families:

Digital equity initiatives traditionally enable access to devices and Internet service, but increasingly, designers are also recognizing the importance of access to people and programs that support digital skills development. Families in under-served communities are most likely to need such supports but least likely to have them available. We explore the extent to which parents and children might serve as these sources of support for each other in low- and lower-middle-income families, who have seldom been the focus of research on children, families, and technology. We examine how sociodemographic factors and parents’ own technology use relate to patterns in how parents and children guide each other’s technology experiences. We then explore how siblings’ collaborative experiences are influenced by the extent to which inter-generational technology practices are either parent- or child-driven. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for strengthening digital equity initiatives targeting school-age children and their families.

What it means to be “under-connected” in lower-income families

Constrained access to the internet and devices that connect to it, or digital inequality, is more complex than the binary framing of a “digital divide” can possibly capture. If connectivity is a continuum along which all technology users are placed (Livingstone & Helsper, 2007), then it stands to reason that some users are “under-connected,” (Rideout & Katz, 2016), relative to how connected they would like to be. I argue that scholars need to prioritize understanding the realities of being under-connected, adjusting their research methods accordingly, if we are to fully account for how digital inequality impacts both children and adults. I will also argue that scholars need to consider digital inequality in context of social relationships, not as individualized experiences. In the case of children, family context is especially crucial to how digital inequality is experienced. Children’s constrained access to technology is never entirely independent; after all, they rely on parents to purchase devices, prioritize monthly payments for internet access, or get them to libraries if the family doesn’t have internet at home. Less obviously, children depend on parents and siblings as sources of support for learning with technology. As a result, family interactions are fundamental to understanding digital inequalities among children, and to identifying potential pathways for resolving these social disparities. I primarily base my comments on a study I led between 2013 and 2016 to investigate how low-income U.S. parents and their school-age children make decisions about adopting the internet and related devices, and how they integrate those technologies into everyday routines. I was particularly interested in how families responded to national, state, and local policy initiatives that target them with subsidized technology offers to empirically assess how well those digital equity programs are addressing families’ needs.1 My team and I began by conducting in-depth, qualitative interviews with 170 Mexicanheritage parents and their focal child in grades K to 8 (N = 336) who qualified for reduced-cost school meals2 in three school districts in Arizona, California, and Colorado (see Katz & Gonzalez, 2016a, 2016b). With the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and Vicky Rideout, we developed questions for a national survey informed by the interview findings, thereby ensuring that we covered key issues for families and not just what we as researchers thought was important. In early 2015, we deployed a nationally representative telephone

Digital Inequality and Developmental Trajectories of Low-income, Immigrant, and Minority Children

Children growing up in the United States today are more ethnically and racially diverse than at any time in the nation’s history. Because of rising income inequality, almost half of the 72 million children in the United States are also growing up in low-income families, with immigrant and children of color disproportionately likely to be within their ranks. Children in low-income households are more likely to face a number of social challenges, including constrained access to the Internet and devices that connect to it (ie, digital inequality), which can exacerbate other, more entrenched disparities between them and their more privileged counterparts. Although the American Academy of Pediatrics’ new guidelines encourage clinicians to reduce children’s overexposure to technology, we argue for a more nuanced approach that also considers how digital inequality can reduce low-income children’s access to a range of social opportunities. We review previous research on how digital inequality affects children’s learning and development and identify areas where more research is needed on how digital inequality relates to specific aspects of children’s developmental trajectories, and to identify what interventions at the family, school, and community levels can mitigate the adverse effects of digital inequality as children move through their formal schooling. On the basis of the evidence to date, we conclude with guidelines for clinicians related to supporting digital connectivity and more equitable access to social opportunity for the increasingly diverse population of children growing up in the United States.

Ethnic Media and the Social Incorporation of New Americans

Ethnic media are growing in size, audience, and visibility worldwide, as well as in the USA. Ethnic media have historically, and still actively, supported the integration of immigrant and ethnic populations into the social fabric of US society by serving the critical information needs (CINs) of these populations across the USA. Because mainstream media are interested in appealing to the broadest possible audience, they tend to overlook CINs specific to these vulnerable populations. As a result, ethnic media are a crucial feature of the media landscape for many Americans. In addition to efforts to stabilize the ethnic media sector by recognizing them as legitimate players in media markets across the country, efforts to directly support ethnic media operations are also necessary.