Thorson and Seo Internet Connectivity Research Published, Accepted for Presentation
Donald
P. and Margaret Curry Gregg Professor Stuart Thorson and assistant
professor of strategic communications at Kansas University Hyunjin Seo
coauthored a study analyzing Internet connectivity worldwide. The research,
published in the Journal of Communication in 2012, examines data
from TeleGeography's
annual survey of Internet capacity and traffic by physical and political
geographic boundaries over ten years. Thorson and Seo found that certain
regions face significant disadvantages resulting from limited Internet access.
Differences in regional bandwidth appear to be growing between nations.
Countries that started with greater bandwidth at the beginning of the scope of
study tended to maintain much higher connectivity than those with a lower
initial bandwidth. Evidential of a large digital divide, these findings have political
and social consequences.
Thorson
and Seo's study has been accepted for the 2013 International
Communication Association conference in London.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-disparities-worldwide-access-internet-bandwidth.html#jCp
Get the study online: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01631.x/abstract