As the Internet, and broadband in particular, becomes a platform for social and political engagement, researchers investigate more carefully both the factors that drive broadband adoption and the barriers that constrain it. This paper reports on one of the only large‐scale qualitative studies of the barriers to broadband adoption in the United States, where 30% of the population lack broadband access. The primary research question asks: how can we qualitatively understand barriers to broadband adoption among low‐income communities? The study's community‐based approach, undertaken in four regions of the country, reveals the complex equilibrium of broadband adoption. Drawing from 170 interviews with broadband non‐adopters as well as community access providers and other intermediaries, this study finds that price is only one factor shaping home broadband adoption, and that libraries and other community organizations fill the gap between low home adoption and high demand for broadband. These intermediaries compensate for shortages in digital skills that also constitute barriers to adoption in a context where broadband is essential for gaining access to jobs, education, and e‐government. These three main findings suggest that low‐income people like our research participants are playing roles as actors in an ecology of broadband access games (Dutton et al. 2004). In particular, they are overcoming barriers to being online in order to participate in accessing services and gaining education. This is part of the process of defining broadband as an infrastructure for e‐democracy. The paper recommends a renewed focus on factors that sustain home access rather than drive demand, as well as support for community intermediaries in provisioning public broadband access within a context of skill shortages. It recommends further qualitative research to better understand the role of diverse populations in framing the value of broadband access.

This paper examines the broadband connectivity options available in digital cities. It offers an overview of services provided by commercial operators, the public sector and by citizens themselves, arguing that shortcomings in existing fixed broadband and commercial mobile broadband services provide an opportunity for citizens to share their own wireless broadband connections. It explores Wi-Fi hotspot provider FON's approach to extending mobile broadband infrastructure by enabling shared connections within communities. The paper outlines some reasons why this specific user-generated approach to infrastructure provision has been unable to deliver highly robust broadband infrastructure, and discusses ways in which users and the public sector can be involved in developing new mobile infrastructures that will meet citizens' needs.

This paper is an edited version of a written dialogue that took place between the fall of 2008 and the summer of 2009 between a filmmaker (Amelia Bryne) and a cartographer (Sébastien Caquard) around the issue of representing globalization. In these conversations, we define some of the key means for representing globalization in both mapmaking and filmmaking discussing local/global, strategic/tactical, data/narrative and unique/multiple perspectives. We conclude by emphasizing the potential impact of new media in ushering in hybrid digital products that merge means of representation traditional to filmmaking and cartography.

This paper examines the broadband connectivity options available in digital cities. It offers an overview of services provided by commercial operators, the public sector and by citizens themselves, arguing that shortcomings in existing fixed broadband and commercial mobile broadband services provide an opportunity for citizens to share their own wireless broadband connections. It explores Wi-Fi hotspot provider FON's approach to extending mobile broadband infrastructure by enabling shared connections within communities. The paper outlines some reasons why this specific user-generated approach to infrastructure provision has been unable to deliver highly robust broadband infrastructure, and discusses ways in which users and the public sector can be involved in developing new mobile infrastructures that will meet citizens' needs.

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