Hardy: The Rural Information Penalty

In The Rural Information Penalty, Jean Hardy (Media & Information, Michigan State) evaluates an accumulation of rural disadvantages that lead to lower quality information, disparate understanding of information, and increased barriers to information for rural people. Hardy terms this phenomenon the “rural information penalty.”

The article takes a “bird’s-eye view” of this information deficit and attempts to discover the root causes of this penalty. The author determines seven influences that make up the rural information penalty: infrastructure, information institutions, information literacy, technology access and maintenance, population density, values and networks, and perceived outsider status.

The article analyzes each of these influences, with specific examples ranging from lack of access to transportation infrastructure to the presense of so-called “news deserts” from a collapse of local rural journalism. Hardy also explores, in a thought-provoking way, features of some rural communities as they relate to information access, including possible distrust of outsiders and otherwise viewing themselves as a second thought to urban-centered policymakers. All of these influences interconnect and impact one another, and Hardy’s big-picture approach to these information (and misinformation) issues is an important and interesting contribution.