"This study of the political economy of rural broadband combines critical policy analysis with stories of rural Americans and offers solutions for solving the rural-urban digital divide"--

Christopher Ali is Associate Professor in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Media Localism: The Policies of Place. He is a Knight News Innovation Fellow with the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University and former Fellow with the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.

Series Foreword
Introduction. Promise, Politics, and Policy: Broadband in Rural America
1. The Struggle for a Wired America: A Brief History of Connecting the Countryside
2. When Good Is the Enemy of Great: The Four Failures of Rural Broadband Policy
3. The Rural Utilities Service: The Reluctant Regulator
4. “It’s Pretty Cool”: Cooperatives, Municipalities, and Rural Connectivity
5. The Jolly Green Giant Goes Digital: Broadband to the Farm and Precision Agriculture
Conclusion: “Everything is Better with Better Broadband”: Toward a National Rural Broadband Plan
Notes
References
Index