Farmers' Reading Rooms and Information and Communications Technology in Rural Areas of Beijing

Tian, Rui

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/46104 Copy

Description

Title

Farmers' Reading Rooms and Information and Communications Technology in Rural Areas of Beijing

Author(s)

Tian, Rui

Issue Date

2013

Keyword(s)

• Rural areas
• China
• Community informatics

Abstract

The reading rooms in the rural areas of Beijing are among the oldest farmers’ reading rooms in China. By 2011, 3,974 farmers’ reading rooms had been established in rural areas of Beijing; there is now one farmers’ reading room in each village. This essay investigates the use of farmers’ reading rooms and information and communication technology (ICT) by villagers in eight villages of Fangshan District in Beijing from the perspective of community informatics. The study that forms the basis of this essay found that the “hollowing-out” of the rural population is one of the major reasons why the utilization rate of farmers’ reading rooms, computers, and the Internet is still low in the rural areas of Beijing. Thus, the author argues that although mobile Internet applications may narrow the urban-rural digital divide, it is necessary to accelerate the digitization upgrade of the farmers’ reading rooms in rural areas. The government should also develop appropriate related policies, give subsidies to reduce Internet access fees, and prioritize training farmers in the use of ICT.

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

ISSN

0024-2594

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/46104

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2013.0030

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2013 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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