IP: No racial differences in Internet use after all

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1947,00.html


time.com / The Netly News
April 30, 1998


by Declan McCullagh and Lev Grossman


       Two weeks ago Science magazine published a study documenting
   racial disparities in who spends time online. The authors, Donna
   Hoffman and Thomas Novak of Vanderbilt University, claimed that "race
   matters in Internet access" and called for new community Net centers
   to bridge the racial divide. It received tremendous publicity, landing
   on the front page of the New York Times. Last week even our sister
   publication Time magazine reprinted some of the findings under the
   headline "World White Web."


       Not so fast, says David Birdsell, an associate professor in the
   school of public affairs at New York City's Baruch College. He points
   out that data collection for the Vanderbilt study began in late 1996,
   when Internet access was more a novelty and less a commodity. (Only
   half as many people were online back then.) His own figures, collected
   over a year later, portray a very different picture.


[...snip...]






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