Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

International Conference on Social Informatics

SocInfo 2017: Social Informatics pp 572–588Cite as

Designing for Digital Inclusion: A Post-Hoc Evaluation of a Civic Technology

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 10539))

Abstract

Digital inequalities are a major obstacle in diversifying the public discourse on the Internet. To explore the potential of a system design to help bridging digital inequalities across gender and race, we conducted a post-hoc evaluation of design decisions within a civic technology that were particularly dedicated to increase participation of women and people of color. While many aspects of digital inequality stay unresolved, our results provide evidence in support of such dedicated design decisions. Our work also makes a methodological contribution by providing an approach to use external public data sets to supplement user demographic data, without which studies of digital inclusion could only rely on self-reported, potentially biased data. We discuss the empirical and ethical implications of our research approach and results.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    http://forums.e-democracy.org/about/.

  2. 2.

    http://www.e-democracy.org/1994/Project_description.html.

  3. 3.

    http://blog.e-democracy.org/archives.

  4. 4.

    http://www.e-democracy.org/1994/E-Debates/.

  5. 5.

    http://www.e-democracy.org/mn-politics/explain.html.

  6. 6.

    http://blog.e-democracy.org/posts/624.

  7. 7.

    http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/mpls/charter.

  8. 8.

    http://forums.e-democracy.org/projects/engage/inclusive-social-media/.

  9. 9.

    http://blog.e-democracy.org/.

  10. 10.

    http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html.

  11. 11.

    According to the 2014 E-Democracy’s user survey.

  12. 12.

    http://www.census.gov/topics/population/genealogy/data/.

  13. 13.

    http://www.mncompass.org/profiles/neighborhoods/minneapolis-saint-paul.

  14. 14.

    To ensure normal distribution of dependent variables, we used log transformation in any case that the variable was not normally distributed.

References

  1. Abdullah, C., Karpowitz, C.F., Raphael, C.: Equity and inclusion in online community forums: an interview with Steven Clift. J. Public Delib. 12(2), 3 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Akoumianakis, D., Stephanidis, C.: Universal design in HCI: a critical review of current research and practice. In: Adjunct Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 499–500 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Anderson, M.: Americans Internet Access: 2000–2015. Technical report, Pew Research Center (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Antin, J., Yee, R., Cheshire, C., Nov, O.: Gender differences in Wikipedia editing. In: Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration, WikiSym 2011, pp. 11–14. ACM, New York (2011). http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2038558.2038561

  5. Collier, B., Bear, J.: Conflict, confidence, or criticism: an empirical examination of the gender gap in Wikipedia. In: Proceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW 2012, pp. 383–392 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Dahlberg, L.: Extending the public sphere through cyberspace: the case of Minnesota e-democracy. First Monday 6(3) (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Dijk, J.A.V.: Digital divide research, achievements and shortcomings. Poetics 34(4), 221–235 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Druin, A.: Cooperative inquiry: developing new technologies for children with children. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 1999, pp. 592–599. ACM, New York (1999). http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/302979.303166

  9. Elliott, M.N., Morrison, P.A., Fremont, A., McCaffrey, D.F., Pantoja, P., Lurie, N.: Using the census bureaus surname list to improve estimates of race/ethnicity and associated disparities. Health Serv. Outcomes Res. Method. 9(2), 69–83 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Farzan, R., Savage, S., Saviaga, G.: Bring on board new enthusiasts! A case study of impact of Wikipedia art + feminism edit-a-thon events on newcomers. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Informatics, SocInfo 2016 (2016, to appear)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Hale, S.A., John, P., Margetts, H.Z., Yasseri, T.: Investigating political participation and social information using big data and a natural experiment. In: APSA 2014 Annual Meeting (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Hankerson, D., Marshall, A.R., Booker, J., El Mimouni, H., Walker, I., Rode, J.A.: Does technology have race? In: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 473–486. ACM (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Hargittai, E., Shaw, A.: Mind the skills gap: the role of internet know-how and gender in differentiated contributions to Wikipedia. Inf. Commun. Soc. 18(4), 424–442 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Hill, B.M., Shaw, A.: The Wikipedia gender gap revisited: characterizing survey response bias with propensity score estimation. PloS ONE 8(6), e65782 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Hoffmann, C.P., Lutz, C., Meckel, M.: Content creation on the Internet: a social cognitive perspective on the participation divide. Inf. Commun. Soc. 18(6), 696–716 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Jen, B., Kaur, J., De Heus, J., Dillahunt, T.R.: Analyzing employment technologies for economically distressed individuals. In: Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2014, pp. 1945–1950. ACM, New York (2014). http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2559206.2581290

  17. Joiner, R., Stewart, C., Beaney, C.: Gender Digital Divide. The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Psychology, Technology and Society, p. 74. Wiley, Chichester (2015)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  18. Lam, S.K., Uduwage, A., Dong, Z., Sen, S., Musicant, D., Terveen, L., Riedl, J.: WP:Clubhouse? An exploration of Wikipedia’s gender imbalance. In: WikiSym 2011. ACM (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Kofink, A.: Contributions of the under-appreciated: gender bias in an open-source ecology. In: Companion Proceedings of the 2015 ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Systems, Programming, Languages and Applications: Software for Humanity, pp. 83–84. ACM (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Kurniawan, S., Mahmud, M., Nugroho, Y.: A study of the use of mobile phones by older persons. In: CHI 2006 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 989–994. ACM (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Lalji, Z., Good, J.: Designing new technologies for illiterate populations: a study in mobile phone interface design. Interact. Comput. 20(6), 574–586 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Lazar, J., Dudley-Sponaugle, A., Greenidge, K.D.: Improving web accessibility: a study of webmaster perceptions. Comput. Hum. Behav. 20(2), 269–288 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Malik, M.M., Pfeffer, J.: Identifying platform effects in social media data. In: ICWSM, pp. 241–249 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Mislove, A., Lehmann, S., Ahn, Y.Y., Onnela, J.P., Rosenquist, J.N.: Understanding the demographics of Twitter users. In: ICWSM, vol. 11, p. 5 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Novak, T.P.: Bridging the racial divide on the Internet. Sci. (AAAS-Wkly. Pap. Ed.) 280(5362), 390–391 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Oreglia, E., Liu, Y., Zhao, W.: Designing for emerging rural users: experiences from China. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2011, pp. 1433–1436. ACM, New York (2011). http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1978942.1979152

  27. Radovanović, D., Hogan, B., Lalić, D.: Overcoming digital divides in higher education: digital literacy beyond facebook. New Media Soc. 17(10), 1733–1749 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Richard, G.T.: Designing games that foster equity and inclusion: encouraging equitable social experiences across gender and ethnicity in online games. In: Proceedings of the CHI 2013 Workshop: Designing and Evaluating Sociability in Online Video Games, Paris, France, pp. 83–88 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Rumbul, R.: Who benefits from civic technology? Demographic and public attitudes research into the users of civic technologies. Technical report, mySociety (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Sambasivan, N., Cutrell, E., Toyama, K., Nardi, B.: Intermediated technology use in developing communities. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 2583–2592. ACM (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Schradie, J.: The trend of class, race, and ethnicity in social media inequality: who still cannot afford to blog? Inf. Commun. Soc. 15(4), 555–571 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Small, J., Schallau, P., Brown, K., Appleyard, R.: Web accessibility for people with cognitive disabilities. In: CHI 2005 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1793–1796. ACM (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Smith, A.: Civic engagement in the digital age. Technical report, Pew Research Center (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Van Dijk, J.A.: Digital divide research, achievements and shortcomings. Poetics 34(4–5), 221–235 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Vasilescu, B., Capiluppi, A., Serebrenik, A.: Gender, representation and online participation: a quantitative study of StackOverflow. In: 2012 International Conference on Social Informatics (SocialInformatics), pp. 332–338. IEEE (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Yardi, S., Bruckman, A.: Income, race, and class: exploring socioeconomic differences in family technology use. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 3041–3050. ACM (2012)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank E-Democracy.org for providing its data and domain knowledge. The work of the first author was supported by CONICYT Chile, under grant Conicyt-Fondecyt Iniciación #11161026.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Av. Espana 1680, Valparaíso, Chile

    Claudia López

  2. University of Pittsburgh, 135 North Bellefield, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA

    Rosta Farzan

Authors
  1. Claudia López
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Rosta Farzan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Claudia López .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

    Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia

  2. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Afra Mashhadi

  3. University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

    Taha Yasseri

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this paper

Cite this paper

López, C., Farzan, R. (2017). Designing for Digital Inclusion: A Post-Hoc Evaluation of a Civic Technology. In: Ciampaglia, G., Mashhadi, A., Yasseri, T. (eds) Social Informatics. SocInfo 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10539. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67217-5_34

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67217-5_34

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-67216-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-67217-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation