Research

Remote work was uncommon prior to the pandemic. But since then, the share of Californians who work from home has increased dramatically, from 6% in 2018–19 to 19% in 2021–22. Most workers consider remote work to be a desirable job benefit and more people would like to work from home than currently do so, according to Public Policy Institute of California surveys.

Social media platforms are an important part of the American news diet: Half of U.S. adults say they get news at least sometimes from social media in general. But specific platforms differ widely in structure, content and culture. A new Pew Research Center survey finds that the ways in which Americans encounter news on four major platforms—TikTok, X, Facebook and Instagram – vary widely. Key findings from this study include:

A draft of key research, sponsored by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, “The Implications of Section 230 for Black Communities,” was posted on the Social Science Research Network. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act enables technology platforms to host and remove user-generated content without fear of liability for either the content or the moderation decisions.

This paper hypothesizes that Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) enrollment decisions are not solely individual, but also influenced by community-wide considerations, such as housing costs, share of occupied houses, presence of anchor institutions such as public libraries, and population density (i.e., whether a place is urban or rural). The paper develops a regression model that predicts ACP enrollment rates among eligible households at the 5-digit zip code geography as a function of the variables discussed above.

Residential fixed broadband internet access in the United States (US) has long been distributed inequitably, drawing significant attention from researchers and policymakers. This paper evaluates the efficacy of the Connect America Fund (CAF), a key policy intervention aimed at addressing disparities in US internet access. CAF subsidizes the creation of new regulated broadband monopolies in underserved areas, aiming to provide comparable internet access, in terms of price and speed, to that available in urban regions.

Recent research found that as the share of White non-Hispanics increases, average download and upload speeds decreases. To delve deeper into this finding and better understand the factors affecting internet speeds, this research conducted spatial error regression models looking at different groups across two points in time (2019 and 2022). Results indicate that rural, older, and poorer groups continue to be associated with slower speeds and that by 2022, these relationships became stronger, widening the divide.

On behalf of Free Press, the African American Research Collaborative (AARC) and BSP Research (BSP) completed a survey of 3,000 American adults to better understand how Americans use media and technology to gain information, how they deal with misinformation and safety online, what privacy concerns they have about online platforms, what they believe are appropriate roles in content moderation, and whether they perceive a need for more independent news sources in the current media and political environment. Key findings included:

Through the Office of Minority Broadband Initiatives (OMBI), National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) directly addresses the lack of high-speed Internet access, connectivity, adoption, and equity at our nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs). OMBI works through these anchor institutions to impact their surrounding anchor communities.

The 5G revolution is in full swing as consumers perceive significant improvement in both the wireless phone service they receive and their chosen mobile devices. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) report covers three categories of wireless phone service providers—mobile network operators (MNOs), fullservice mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), and value MVNOs—as well as cell phone manufacturers. ACSI scores are reported on a 0 to 100 scale. Key takeaways include:

The Federal Communications Commission recently voted to subject the Internet, once again, to legacy public utility telecommunications regulation originally designed for the old Ma Bell monopoly. While the FCC’s new rules do not push so far as to regulate retail rates (though they do regulate wholesale termination rates), the FCC’s rules open the door to potential retail rate regulation of broadband services by the states.