Mode of Program Participation
Community Organizing and Educational Programming
Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
Connectivity and Inequality in East Tennessee
Session Abstract or Summary
This panel is a presentation of roughly two years of organizing by the Sustainable and Equitable Agricultural Development Task Force. The Task Force, or SEAD, is working to assist our local utility boards in the installation of high speed fiber optic internet service to our communities. Today we will present academic and community perspectives on the issue.
We understand that access can help create a sense of power for people, allowing for the sharing of resources with people across geographies. Broadband is a vital component of infrastructure for the promotion of community growth, quality of life improvements and public safety. Economically, a locally-owned public internet option makes sense for us in several ways, including, but not limited to: supporting rural small businesses, keeping educated people in rural counties, empowerment of local students, and greater civic engagement on the part of rural residents.
Having a publicly-provided option will increase competition and the quality of internet service in areas with some internet access. In areas of East Tennessee with little or no broadband internet access, a publicly- owned option will provide services to unincorporated areas underserved or neglected by the big telecommunications corporations.
The SEAD Task Force will share its stories through academic, community, and policy lenses. Within each category, the Task Force will focus on resources, needs, and strategies for our work to advance municipal, rural broadband for all.
Presentation #1 Title
Power Lines: Personal Perspectives on Broadband and Local Politics
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
As the old coal economies make way for newer, more diversified economies, community members in Appalachia have identified accessible broadband as a policy priority. The political discourse around municipally distributed, public internet has drawn the passion and ire of public actors, private actors, and citizens of the state. Tennessee has struggled to reconcile a political dedication to the free market with the realities of rural poverty and economic depression in its job-starved mountains. Meanwhile, SEAD is drawing connections between connectivity and economic diversification in a post-coal Appalachian Tennessee. The results of Tennessee’s recent state connectivity report were overtly quantitative: providing a qualitative assessment of people’s perceptions of their power within local government and their hopes for the future is imperative in order to meaningfully move forward. This can be done by accessing stories from Tennessee’s economically distressed counties, filling in the lines of the data through contextual concerns about economic development and community assets. Caitlin has studied the impacts of broadband access inequity in Cocke, Greene, and Carter Counties through a sociological perspective, interviewing local government actors, community anchor institutions, and ordinary citizens about their hopes and dreams for their connected future.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Caitlin Myers is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in the College of Arts & Sciences. Caitlin is currently working on her undergraduate thesis on the topic of rural broadband expansion, and its relationship to community self-determination, autonomy, and grassroots economic development in East Tennessee.
Presentation #2 Title
Building Community Inside Telecommunications Policy
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
William will discuss his in-depth, years-long campaign work around the broadband issue. Mandated by land-based organizers and residents, the Rural Broadband Campaign began as a mechanism for addressing and solving the digital divide in the Clearfork Valley and Cosby communities of Eastern Tennessee. Through on-the-ground research by campaign workers, infrastructure solutions were identified and alliances built with local utilities and governmental decision-makers. Publicly-owned fiber optic internet providers were identified as the best and healthiest option for affected households and transitional economies. The work of closing this digital divide in specific geographies was immediately forced to engage with the State of Tennessee and eastern Counties around restrictive state-level policy that limits the expansion of municipally-owned fiber optic broadband projects in Tennessee. Isom will discuss how, through the process of organizing rural stakeholders around policy, a greater inclusionary community is formed positioning residents to formulate local infrastructure solutions in spite of bureaucratic barriers.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
William Isom II is the director of community outreach for East Tennessee PBS and a coordinator for the Rural Broadband Campaign. He's a native of Hamblen County, Tennessee, and assists with policy strategy, infrastructure research and resident support for the expansion of publicy-owned fiber optic broadband service in rural communities.
Presentation #3 Title
Broadband Expansion in Cocke County, Tennessee
Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary
Deborah Bahr believes there are concrete reasons Appalachia has been economically depressed for generations. The mountain region has been a colony for large corporations and absentee landowners. Deborah works to correct “colonized mindsets” in local communities that breeds a distrust of formal institutions and outsiders. Many times, outside institution have the resources that can assist communities in overcoming many economic and environmental obstacles. New technologies are now available to Appalachian communities in support of self-sufficient project, but often times those tools are withheld with-in fractured, dumped upon environments. Throughout these dynamics, we are able to see the peoples’ Spirit struggle for resilience! Deborah will talk about stories of struggle and success that have come to her through work on the Nolichucky and Pigeon Rivers, currently polluting East Tennessee communities. These communities have and are still paying the price for others’ affluent lifestyle. Municipal Broadband is a tool positioned to assist poor communities in the creation of a more equitable existence. Closing our rural digital divide can allow people to empower their own communities and create economies that feed local interests instead of corporate profits.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Deborah Bahr is the Director of CWEET, Clean Water Expected in East Tennessee. . Deborah comes from the Baltimore Washington DC area, holds a degree in Women's Studies from the University of Tennessee, and is dedicated to a clean Pigeon River and the development of healthy Appalachian economies.
Presentation #4 Title
Fair Trade Appalachia
Presentation #4 Abstract or Summary
Carol Judy will speak to the issues related to her community in coal country and the ways in which local Broadband could assist in creating economic and educational opportunities . Carol will share strategies that have worked in the past. The fact that corporations are taking services out of areas where profits are slow in accumulating, forgetting loyal customers because they live in areas difficult to access. Rural unincorporated communities are often left out . Technology could do a lot for these small communities and the people who live in them. The quality of air and water for cities in the East are dependent on the mountains where these communities are rooted. Carol will discuss the interdependence between rural and urban environments and how internet connectivity can help shape rural communities economies dependent on urban dollars. Carol speaks around generational shifts and the need to plan decades- even centuries ahead.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Carol is a wild woman and knows quite a bit about forest management and the uses of plants as value added products for people and woods. She lives in Eagan, Tennessee, as one of three founders of Fair Trade Appalachia, and a consistent promoter of the Woodlands Community Land Trust.
Presentation #5 Title
Network Analysis of Rural Broadband Access Issue in Tennessee
Presentation #5 Abstract or Summary
Rural Broadband Access in Tennessee is a policy issue that spans multiple sectors, all the way from local communities and grassroots organizations up to the Federal Government. When the Federal Communications Commission launched its National Broadband Plan in March of 2010 it set out the goal of expanding broadband access to all US citizens. This goal crosses paths with policy issues that cross the public and private sectors, affecting not just individuals at the local level but through private as well as public entities. At the state level, specifically in Tennessee this has emerged through multiple paths of shared policy interest.
For grassroots organizations, especially, it is important to be able to visualize the policy area they are interacting with. Doing so enables them to work out where their points of entry are as well as which areas are congested and which entities are vying for entry points. These entry points can be access to legislators or even other interest groups. An issues map enables organizations to strategically plan which entry points are viable as well as what organizations share similar policy interests in order to develop possible partnerships.
This study uses network analysis to create both an issues and a digital map of shared policy interests in this area. Through use of digital social studies techniques as well as a deep-background analysis of shared policy issues it will show how the various entities working on this issue in Tennessee cross paths, converge and overlap. It will show the focus of these issue paths, allowing for organizations to view both their allies and competitors, in order to view where their strategic efforts are best placed.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #5
Jamie Alexander Greig is a Teaching/Research Associate and 2nd year Doctoral student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in the Department of Communication and Information. He has contributed to two volumes of Professor Stuart. N. Brotman’s “Communications Law and Practice” and is focusing his current research efforts on analyzing successful models for Rural Broadband expansion.
Power Lines: Personal Perspectives on Broadband and Local Politics
As the old coal economies make way for newer, more diversified economies, community members in Appalachia have identified accessible broadband as a policy priority. The political discourse around municipally distributed, public internet has drawn the passion and ire of public actors, private actors, and citizens of the state. Tennessee has struggled to reconcile a political dedication to the free market with the realities of rural poverty and economic depression in its job-starved mountains. Meanwhile, SEAD is drawing connections between connectivity and economic diversification in a post-coal Appalachian Tennessee. The results of Tennessee’s recent state connectivity report were overtly quantitative: providing a qualitative assessment of people’s perceptions of their power within local government and their hopes for the future is imperative in order to meaningfully move forward. This can be done by accessing stories from Tennessee’s economically distressed counties, filling in the lines of the data through contextual concerns about economic development and community assets. Caitlin has studied the impacts of broadband access inequity in Cocke, Greene, and Carter Counties through a sociological perspective, interviewing local government actors, community anchor institutions, and ordinary citizens about their hopes and dreams for their connected future.
