Digital Redlining
Redlining refers to the discriminatory practice of denying services, directly or by raising prices to residents in certain areas, based on their racial or ethnic composition. The term redlining comes from the red lines bankers, real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and insurance agents drew on maps to designate the targeted areas where they refused to provide housing and business loans and other services.
While redlining is illegal in many communities, this type of geographic discrimination still occurs in many forms. In the digital environment, many rural and urban communities often receive limited or no access to affordable Internet resources, high-end computers, broadband internet access, and higher educational opportunities.
Media
Watch this short documentary on redlining from Discriminology.
Definitions of Digital Redlining
- Chris Gilliard, an English professor at Macomb Community College, defines digital redlining as technology policies, practices, pedagogies, and investment decisions that reinforce class and race boundaries (2016)[1]. His work concentrates on privacy, institutional technology policy, digital redlining, and the re-inventions of discriminatory practices through data mining and algorithmic decision-making. These issues are especially applicable to college-level students.
Optional Podcast
- Listen to the podcast: Digital Redlining and Privacy with Chris Gilliard from Teaching in HigherEd.
Annotation - Examples of Digital Redlining
Racial and Gender Gias in Google Search
Read the following article and add or reply to annotations using Hypothes.is. Remember to tag your posts using the course code: lida102
- Google Search: Hyper-visibility as a Means of Rendering Black Women and Girls Invisible by Safiya Umoja Noble.
Redlining in Higher Education
Choose one of the following readings and add, or reply to, annotations using Hypothes.is. Remember to tag your posts using the course code: lida102.
- Pedagogy and the Logic of Platforms by Chris Gilliard.
- Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy by Chris Gilliard.
References
- Gilliard, C. (2016). Digital redlining and privacy with Chris Gilliard, Teaching in HigherEd Podcast