Page 104 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 43

104 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.9, 2017

digital poverty. Among the villages in my field research, rural residents employed the village
committees, rural enterprise managers, specialized households, village doctors, and teachers
are more likely than other residents to access and acquire corresponding digital resources and
services, their social status, social institutions and locations have obvious advantages. Another
structural social capital phenomenon is that the younger rural residents are, the more likely they
are to receive and access external social capital, and the more chances they can receive to get rid of
digital poverty. The older they are, the higher degree they will rely on internal social capital, and
the more difficult it is for them to move out of digital poverty.
The structural elements of political capital insist of membership in political parties, power,
government decisions, laws, citizenship, and citizens’ trust in the government. Membership of
political parties describes whether a social individual is a member of a political party that affects
its control over political power and economic interests (Mossberger, Tolbert, & Stansbury,
2003), further limiting its ability to access and utilize digital resources. Power is reflected in
the domination of the elites in the governments’ decision-making process and their control over
the invention and innovation of information technologies (Cartier, Castells, & Qiu, 2005). The
government’s policies contain the household registration system, reform policies, economic
development policies, state monopolies, official support for prior adoption of ICTs, and
government openness (Cartier, Castells, & Qiu, 2005; Azari & Pick, 2009). Citizenship refers to
the continuous encroachment of civil rights by political groups and powerful private economic
groups (Cartier, Castells, & Qiu, 2005). Citizens’ trust in the government means that whether they
are individuals without ICTs or adopters of ICTs, the intention of their behavior will be positively
affected if they trust the government (Hsieh, 2005). In the fieldwork, rural village committees
basically walked ahead of ordinary households and other village organizations. The first computer
in one village had a higher probability of emergence in the village committee than other places,
such as economically affluent rural families. Village committee members enjoy the priority to
access to office computers and faster fiber networks funded by public budgets. When they decide
on how to allocate digital resources supported by public money, their family members, residents,
and others with closer social relations share the priority. For instance, in Tianzhu County of Gansu
Province, village leaders and committee members could decide who participate in Party Members
Distance Education Program conference and training, and who can participate in not-for-profit
training programs launched by the Evergreen Education Foundation, and finally those who keep
closer relations with them were recommended. In the public policies such as the Broadband China
Strategy, the Construction Plan of Public Electronic Reading Room, and the Distance Education
Program for Party Members, whether or not the voices of the digital poor groups, the public library
professionals, and residents can be heard and adopted will directly determine who will have the
priority of moving out of digital poverty. The digital poor residents, especially those living in
extreme poverty, cannot basically maintain good social relations with village committee cadres and
branch members. Some villagers even complained about why village committee members can use