Digital Redlining; Information Access and What S Being Taken Away

Antonio Patrico

Professor H. Culik

ENGL-1190-C1622

22 April 2017

Digital Redlining; Information access and what’s being taken away

In today’s society, the divide between social classes is something that really isn’t talked about. Jean Anyon wrote an article about the K-12 experience for a student relating it to social class, and how the upper vs lower class has advantages vs disadvantages. With that article, there is a lot to think about, and that leads into the term Digital Redlining. The term Digital Redlining is described as a way to deny services or information access to people based off their social class, racial, or ethnic background. This is not something that is talked about much, and it leads into my whole point of the paper, which is the topic of the information access to a student who goes to a community college compared to a student who goes to a R1 school. Now, with that being said, students who go to community colleges are found to be in the middle to lower class students, and I feel that’s a statement that’s safe to say. When it comes to the R1 schools, the students who are able to afford a high-priced school will end up getting more out of it, right? This can lead to my claim that the higher class is set up to have more success compared to the working class, because education is scalable in a way that society is set up.

Community colleges and universities have differences in the education offered to their students when it comes to the information they offer to a student. Community colleges limit their access to their students. Colleges have the right based of their information policies on what is presented and taken away from their students. I was able to go onto multiple community college websites to visit their information policy’s, and simply everything stated in the policy is what they can’t access or do. This is where digital redlining can come into play, by holding back the information accessed to those middle to lower classed students that attend a community college schools. On the other hand, those R1 schools like Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State don’t have limit on to what they are able to access. Students who attend the bigger schools have all the access they want to collect the information they need. Now with that being said, it shows that the education system is setting up the higher class for success compared to the working-class students who attend a community college. The information policies presented to students truly do play a huge part on a student’s success based off of what they can and can’t access.

There was an awesome article written by a great professor named Chris Gilliard that reinforces the term digital redlining and how information access to a student comes into play with the term. The article is called “Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy.” This article is about not only digital redlining, but how it comes into play by using a real-life example by a student named Nina, who is a community college student in a composition class at her school,that is doing an assignment around the topic of privacy, surveillance and online identity in terms of revenge porn. To show a little more about the story of Nina, and how digital redlining comes into play, here is what Chris Gilliard wrote about Nina:

Today, in the present, Nina is a contemporary community college student enrolled in a composition class that explores issues of surveillance, privacy, and online identity. She participates in a class discussion of revenge porn, and she decides that it offers a topic for exploring the connection between the digital world and issues of gender, power, and free speech. She goes to one of the computer labs and does a quick search. Her effort proves unproductive. It produces information about ABC's hit show Revenge but nothing about what everyone reading this column understands "revenge porn" to mean. For Nina, the concept doesn't exist -- not because the Internet contains no information on revenge porn but because Nina's version of the Internet is filtered. Because the filters between her and the Internet block access to information, she reasonably believes that the issue is marginal and that other topics might prove more fruitful. She moves on to something else, unaware of the invisible walls erected that prevent her from accessing information that might allow her to do her I am work. The student has been digitally redlined, walled off from information based on the IT policies of her institution.Gilliard, Chris.Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy. Common Sense education, May 24, 2016.

Looking at those information policies, it really helps to have a better understanding as to what the overall goal of this paper is. I was able to call multiple schools to find out the information they have access too, and what specifically they are interested in putting their money towards for their students. In particular, looking at a subscription website called JSTOR. JSTOR is a subscription package that multiple schools offer to their students in order to have sources that are credible to help them in their academic success (JSTOR). There are three subscription levels that JSTOR offers to the schools that purchase the site. The three subscriptions they offer is the Complete Current Scholarship Program, the Publisher Package, and the Single Title Package (JSTOR). Each subscription has a difference price tag to it, and being able to have the evidence in the chart presented below will really have the information I need to show that education scalable in the way society is set up in today’s world.

What this chart shows the differences in the information access, in particular JSTOR, from the schools listed on the top which are community colleges compared to the 3 R1 schools in Michigan. This is where my claim comes into play, and the evidence itself backs it up that education is scalable when it comes to the information access available to students. Looking at Alpena, they had a budget cut which led them to getting rid of JSTOR. When I was talking to the lady on the phone named Kelly Jackson, she said quote, “the information is too scholarly for community colleges, and believes its university material” (Jackson). Now as she didn’t mean it in a harsh way, but in reality, is this how community colleges look at their students that they aren’t good, nor smart enough to take on scholarly information? This is where digital redlining may come into play, because students at community colleges are looked at as “working class students”. They are being held back from the information they may access and how much they can access. Kalamazoo, Macomb CC and Oakland Community College offer JSTOR to their students, but only so much. After talking to Robin Rank from Kalamazoo college, where they offer Single Title Package, she claims that “cost is the issue as to why they don’t subscribe to a bigger package” (Rank). With that being said, community colleges don’t believe that the students are up to the education standards that just as website like JSTOR offers, because of the price it cost, and the scholarly information it provides.

Looking at those R1 schools especially on this chart, it basically says it all when it comes to the information the students at those R1 schools have access too. When talking to these schools, it was almost uncertain for them to hear a community college student calling them in regards to data base subscriptions like JSTOR. The answer was pretty much the same for all three and that was, “we subscribe to mostly all of them” (R1Librarians). Students at these high priced and educated schools have access to more than just simply JSTOR. Price is not a problem, when students pay the money, they get what they pay for, and that’s how I look at it.

The term digital redlining is a term that most people in today’s generation don’t even know what it means let alone know about it. Starting with these information policies, students don’t realize that go to a community college what they are being held back from. The information access to a student can play a huge role in a student’s success no matter where they go. After calling these schools I was able to learn a lot, and take a lot from it. Just because a working-class student can’t afford to go to a R1 type school, doesn’t mean by any means they should be held back access to certain databases because they can’t afford a higher price school. Money, social class, and education play a huge role with each other even when people don’t realize it. Community college students are being held back from their highest potential, and that needs to change. Taking away an opportunity from a student based off of the money they pay and where they come from should never happen. Education and social class need to come together have a standard where education is spread out equally to everyone no matter where they come from. I believe with time and some thought put into it, it could happen. Education is missing out on the overall bigger picture of providing an equal and fair education to everyone.

Work Cited

Gilliard, Chris. "Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy." Common Sense Education. N.p., 06 July 2016. Web. 22 Apr. 2017.

JSTOR. ITAKA, n.d. Web.

Also all those schools I was able to call are a part of my research.