#DigitalDivide across the Urban-Rural Continuum

• In Event: Information and Democracy

Abstract

In the 21st century, the U.S. political landscape has been challenged by political polarization leading to wedge issues pushing each of the dominant parties to the margins of their constituencies. To explain this phenomenon, a focal cleavage to emerge throughout the literature is the urban-rural divide. In the wake of the COVID pandemic, the topic of the #digitaldivide has sparked some bi-partisan interest (e.g., the “Digital Equity Act” within the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021). Within this spectrum of supporters for such efforts facing an upcoming election fraught with heightened skepticism on both sides of the aisle, the similarities and differences across racially diverse populations require re-evaluation. Using a comparative analysis of two memoirs - Charles Booker's "From the Hood to the Holler" (2022) and Tara Westover's "Educated" (2018), this paper intervenes into the race, ethnicity, and politics literature to capture a current reality that looms over the U.S. political landscape - the majority of the world’s population lives in cities. Using the concept of the urban-rural continuum (Scala & Johnson 2017) and focusing on the gap in internet access present across that continuum, this paper posits that a racial interface constituted through social media is as important as a geographical one for the understanding, and possible mitigation, of the current trends in political polarization.

Author

• Jasmine Noelle Yarish, University of the District of Columbia