A final element in considering the Internet’s role in local communities is public access.  Some see public Internet access as a way to allow those without a computer at home or work to enjoy the fruits of email and the Web.  Others see public Internet access as a way to encourage community chatter, as people hang out at an Internet café or public library to check their email.  When all Americans – Internet and non-Internet users alike – were asked if they knew of a place in their community where the Internet was publicly available, 51% said yes, 32% said no, and 17% said they did not know.  Internet users were much more likely to be aware of a public access site, with 63% saying their neighborhood had a public Internet access site compared with 38% of non-Internet users.  When asked to classify the type of place where the Internet was publicly available, 42% of all Americans said it was the public library, 2% said a school, 1% an Internet café, and 1% said a copy or computer store.

The most prominent differences in responses to the public access question have to do with race.  Some 53% of all white Americans and 51% of Hispanics said their neighborhood had a public Internet site, while just 44% of blacks said “yes” to this question. On the other side of the coin, 29% of whites said their neighborhood had no public Internet site, compared to 42% of blacks and 33% of Hispanics.  The differences are greater for Internet users.  Two-thirds (66%) of whites say there is a place nearby with publicly available Internet compared with 53% of blacks and 57% of Hispanics.  While a quarter (25%) of all Internet users say their neighborhood lacks a place where the Internet is available, 23% of whites say this, 38% of blacks, and 29% of Hispanics. 

Smaller differences are evident on public access for rural, urban, and suburban users.  Among Internet users, 65% of rural residents say they know of a place in their community where the Internet is publicly available compared with 64% of suburban residents and 59% of urban dwellers.  This relatively uniform finding is somewhat surprising because one might expect rural users, because of greater distance between enclaves of population, would either not know of publicly available Internet sites or simply not have them.  All of this is in the context of higher Internet penetration rates in urban and suburban areas, with 57% of suburban residents and 55% of urban residents having Internet access compared with 44% of rural residents.

In summary, the Internet plays a fairly prominent role at the local level as an information utility and a comparatively small role in organizing public debate.  However, for a subset of Internet users—the most wired and those who are most involved in using the Internet to be part of an online community—use of the Internet helps in community participation.  A significant number of these users can think of a situation in which the Internet helped shape public participation.  As for public access, the Internet does not have the standing of the pay phone when it comes to a publicly available communications tool.  About half of all Americans can say that they know of a public Internet site in their neighborhood, with white Americans (Internet users especially) having greater awareness of these sites than blacks and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics.