The Joint Center is pleased to see AT&T committing to significant new investments to improve the broadband ecosystem in the United States. The investment in building out the company's spectrum assets should help all Americans, especially African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities that are such heavy users of Smartphones and other wireless devices. AT&T's announcement also sets off a much-needed dialogue on how the regulatory environment must evolve as telecommunications networks transition to an Internet Protocol environment. The Joint Center looks forward to working with all stakeholders to make sure this transition proceeds quickly and takes into account the needs of African Americans, Hispanics, and other people of color in the United States.

Download this press release by clicking the link below.
 

Although it has been in its new office location for nearly three weeks, The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies continued with old business Monday afternoon with its “Broadband, the Economy, and Driving Adoption” panel discussion.

In collaboration with Comcast, the Joint Center’s event gathered a panel of broadband data experts and pragmatists to identify the factors impeding high broadband adoption rates in low adopting communities, share real-world examples of the effects of broadband in low-income and minority communities, as well as lessons learned in convincing the aforementioned communities to adopt broadband.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski delivered remarks prior to the main discussion and emphasized the increase in prevalence of broadband across the country.

Read more at Politic365.

The Joint Center and Comcast Corporation held a Technology Policy Forum entitled Broadband, the Economy, and Driving Adoption on September 24, 2012.

In recent years, there have been two developments in technology adoption that are in tension with one another. On the one hand, home broadband adoption has increased only modestly since 2009. On the other, there has been a very rapid increase the adoption of Smartphones. This development presents questions for policymakers and stakeholders interested in the digital divide, namely: Does the leveling off of home broadband adoption and accompanying growth in Smartphone adoption represent a substitution effect? That is, are those without broadband at home simply turning to Smartphones instead and, if so, how does their Internet use relate to that of broadband users? Understanding the answers to these questions will be important to policymakers and those in the private sector interested in closing technology access gaps. To address the questions, this paper will rely on data drawn from a statewide telephone survey of Illinois residents fielded in February-March of 2012. The survey explored in detail how people get online (e.g., home broadband, tablets, Smartphones), what online activities they do (e.g., information searches, shopping, educational uses), and how they view the usefulness of different access means for carrying out tasks online.

Speaking at a forum at Howard University on the effective use of social media, political communications experts urged college students and other young voters to transform their Facebook and Twitter contacts into powerful political networks in advance of the 2012 elections.

The non-partisan forum on Wednesday was convened by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Media and Technology Institute, in partnership with Howard's School of Communications, NAACP, National Action Network, Voto Latino, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Hip Hop Caucus, IMPACT, Politic365 and BET Networks. "African Americans in particular are over-represented on sites like Twitter," said political commentator Jamal Simmons. "Transforming the contacts to good works can make a significant impact if this year is anything like the last election when African Americans played a critical role in getting this president elected."

Read more at Yahoo! News.

Politic365 recently went on record with Dr. Nicol Turner-Lee, Vice President and Director of the Media and Technology Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and Harold Crumpton, Chair of the NAACP National Board’s Media, Telecom and Broadband Taskforce and former Missouri Public Service Commissioner, to discuss the important issue of wireless taxation and its potential impact on marginalized communities.

Politic365 recently went on record with Dr. Nicol Turner-Lee, Vice President and Director of the Media and Technology Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and Harold Crumpton, Chair of the NAACP National Board’s Media, Telecom and Broadband Taskforce and former Missouri Public Service Commissioner, to discuss the important issue of wireless taxation and its potential impact on marginalized communities.

Read more at Politic365.

Speaking at a forum at Howard University on the effective use of social media, leading experts on socioeconomics and political communications urged college students and other young voters to transform their Facebook and Twitter contacts into powerful political networks in advance of the 2012 elections.

The non-partisan forum on Wednesday was convened by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Media and Technology Institute, in partnership with Howard’s School of Communications , NAACP, National Action Network, Voto Latino, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Hip Hop Caucus and leading media outlets that target African Americans.
 
“African Americans in particular are over-represented on sites like Twitter,” said political commentator Jamal Simmons of The Raben Group. “Transforming the contacts to good works can make a significant impact if this year is anything like the last election when African Americans played a critical role in getting this president elected,” he added.

The Federal Communications Commission held a nearly three hour-long public hearing at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication to discuss recent findings on the needs of local coverage in journalism.

The hearing consisted of three panels of media experts that focused on different topics: broadband access, broadcasting rights and new digital media.  The topics related to the recent FCC report, “The Information Needs of Communities: The changing media landscape in a broadband age.”

---

Nicol Turner-Lee, vice president and director at the Media and Technology Institute, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, addressed the needs of impoverished citizens.

“More than 40 percent of African Americans are going to smart phones but news consumption is severely limited,” Turner-Lee said.

Read more at Arizona State University's State Press.