The Digital Villages Research Network

Moorsholm in the news

Broadband issue makes headlines in the Gazette.

Broadband news

Some potentially good news?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/06/extra-50m-superfast-broadband-uk-2015

Thank goodness for the internet.

Life in a rural village is a great experience. Having been born and bred in the hustle and bustle of city life whilst growing up in London, I can really appreciate the quiet, good life of living in a rural community.

View from our garden in Moorsholm

However, come the winter it can have some disadvantages. The countryside here on the edge of the North York Moors is stunningly beautiful and full of fantastic photo opportunities. As the winter arrives it gives us some amazing winter scenes. In fact the picture shows this, and was featured on ITV’s North East Tonight local weather news on Thursday 25th November.

The problem is, getting out and about to capture these scenes. So, in only our second winter in Moorsholm, we are yet again snowed in. With the local roads being very dangerous to drive on, it is the best option to stay put.

But life and work must carry on, and we are lucky to be able to work from home. Most of this work at the moment can be carried out on the computer and the internet. Although we love to be out in the communities of East Cleveland the winter wonderland as it is restricts that.

So thank goodness for the internet. It gives us the chance to carry on through the weather (poor broadband connection permitting) and keep in contact with the outside world.

See you all sometime soon.

Our Digital Future

Paul, Eileen and I attended and presented at the Niace conference on Digital skills and inclusion in London yesterday. See the conference website for lots of information on the day.

Our workshop focused on rural broadband access, digital exclusion and non-use and the value of digital village websites. We used data from our research to faciliate discussion. The document can be found here. All names have been changed.

I was pleased to hear that the rural issue is on the radar, though there seems to be much more work to be done. There is also a suggestion on the Niace website that plans for superfast broadband rollout will exacerbate the urban-rural divide. Our data supports this view, with Moorsholm residents reporting difficulties in accessing websites, especially with new media features and with potentially serious implications for rural businesses. Suggestions were made that more outreach is needed in rural communities, for example, internet access points in pubs and community venues, or greater use of dongles and 3G. Whilst these ideas are excellent for rural residents, they do still bypass the core problem of inequitable access and connectivity across geographical areas.

There is an increasing push to get non-users online, with a concerning suggestion that there will be much less choice about use in the future. See slide 6 of this presentation. Although it is recognised that digital exclusion maps onto social exclusion and poverty, it seems that action to combat digital exclusion will focus on the necessity of internet use, rather than the underlying factors which shape access and skills development.

There is a strong case to be made for encouraging greater development of digital villages for local communities, not least because of the connectivity it affords community members. Comments from our workshop suggest that digital villages need good organisation and leadership. They can also be a way of getting people involved in community both on the ground and online. A nice example of different digital villages can be seen here.