Page 91 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 44

090 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.10, 2018

large amount of public welfare resources in Gansu Tianzhu, and extended to many rural students
and their parents through the No.1 Middle School of Tianzhu, which had a significant effect on
improving individuals’ digital poverty.
In addition to the above research findings, digital efforts can also be influenced by strong
ties. In the seventeen cases in which the digital poor received help from social networks but had
insufficient digital efforts, sixteen were supported by strong ties and the other one was supported
by weak ties. Although thirty-three cases with insufficient digital efforts still have not been
supported by any social networks, they are likely to be positively affected by social networks from
the samples that have been supported.
It can be concluded from the field study that the change of strong ties to digital psychology,
digital ability, digital efforts, digital social support, and digital impact has been supported by
these cases, and the positive impact of weak ties on digital social support can also be proved to
some extent. Although poverty in digital tool sever appeared in cases of seeking help, the impact
of strong ties and weak ties were not fully supported by the cases because they only provided
temporary improvement in the lack of digital tools. Digital social norm was not supported in the
cases, which also provided proof that it is the most difficult to change.

4 Conclusions and enlightenment

Through text encoding of a large number of field data, this paper identifies the forms in which
eight types of digital poverty exist in real society on the basis of the cases. The digital poverty
does not exist only in a single type, but also in composite types more often, and overlapping types
make digital poverty more complicated. The impact of social networks on the composite digital
poor caused by overlapping different types of digital poverty is concluded from macroscopic and
microscopic perspectives respectively. The more types of digital poverty are overlapped on the
digital poor, the more likely the value of social networks is to be underestimated, whereas the
fewer types of digital poverty are overlapped on the digital poor, the more likely they are to get
effective support from social networks. The value of social networks to the digital extremely poor
is not verified. Strong ties play an obviously positive role for the composite digital poor who are
of two to five types of digital poverty overlapped, that is, in the medium degree of digital poverty.
Strong ties are of value in reducing poverty for the vulnerable poor, the digital illiterate, the
digitally idle, the socially lonely and vain seekers. Weak ties play a significant role only for the
socially lonely, and the effect of the weak ties to reduce other types of digital poverty remains to be
seen. The relationship between digital resisters caused by social norms and social networks has not
been effectively supported in the study, which does not mean it is not applicable in reality, but only
means it needs further design and practical exploration.
The conclusions of this study are beneficial to the introduction of more targeted and effective
digital poverty alleviation policies in the future. First, the higher the degree of poverty is and the