Transnational Family Communication as a Driver of Technology Adoption

International Journal of Communication 10(2016), 2683–2703 1932–8036/20160005

Copyright © 2016 (Carmen Gonzalez & Vikki S. Katz). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution

Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at http://ijoc.org.

Transnational Family Communication

as a Driver of Technology Adoption

CARMEN GONZALEZ1

University of Washington, USA

VIKKI S. KATZ

Rutgers University, USA

The diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has made

transnational communication more affordable and intensive. In this article, we examine

how transnational family communication shapes immigrant families’ technology adoption

and appropriation. Through interviews with immigrant Latino families about their

experiences with computers, mobile devices, and the Internet, transnational family

communication emerged as a motivating factor for purchasing and introducing digital

technologies into the household. Digital ICTs help parents maintain virtual intimacy with

faraway relatives, secure emotional support, and engage in transnational caregiving. For

their children, cross-border interactions serve as opportunities to support their parents’

efforts to maintain family continuity. Such motivations facilitate a process of

appropriation as families negotiate the affordances of particular devices and platforms.

Keywords: ICTs, transnationalism, family communication, technology adoption

Cross-border, or transnational, communication is integral to the immigrant experience and has

been documented across immigrant groups since the first Great Wave of migration to the United States in

the late 1800s (Gabaccia, 2000; Morawska, 2009). Immigrant families have relied heavily on available

communication technologies to bridge physical distances and sustain personal relationships, especially

when residency or economic restrictions make in-person contact either infrequent or impossible. Recent

innovations in, and diffusion of, information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as broadband

Internet and mobile phones have made transnational communication more affordable and intensive than

in the past.

In this article, we extend current literature by examining how transnational family communication

motivates immigrant families’ technology adoption as well as how parents and children engage ICTs for

Carmen Gonzalez: [email protected]

Vikki S. Katz: [email protected]

Date submitted: 2016–01–11

1 This research was supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The authors would like to thank

Alexia Raynal for her assistance during data collection and preliminary coding.

2684 Carmen Gonzalez & Vikki S. Katz International Journal of Communication 10(2016)

these purposes. We focus on immigrant families2

in the United States who identify as Hispanic or Latino.3

More specifically, we focus on lower-income4

families in this demographic, because the majority (62%) of

Hispanic children are growing up in families that meet this financial designation (Jiang, Ekono, & Skinner,

2016).

Americans with Latin American heritage currently comprise 17% of the overall U.S. population,

and this proportion is projected to double to 106 million by 2050 (Motel & Patten, 2014). Although

continued migration from Central and South America are contributing factors, U.S. births are the bigger

driver of Latino population growth. At present, one-quarter of U.S. children are Latino, 90% of whom are

U.S.-born and 50% of whom have at least one foreign-born parent (Kids Count Data Center, 2015). These

data suggest that connections to places and people beyond U.S. borders are part of everyday life for many

Latino adults and children.

Our focus on transnational communication in family life builds on the existing literature in a few

important ways. Most fundamentally, the underlying motivations for the rapid, recent uptick in U.S.

Latinos’ technology adoption have yet to be fully uncovered. National reports reveal that Latinos are now

accessing the Internet and adopting Internet-capable devices at equivalent or higher rates compared to

other ethnic groups (Livingston, 2011; Lopez, Gonzalez-Barrera, & Patten, 2013; Matsaganis, 2012). By

2012, a majority of Latino adults (78%) were using the Internet at least occasionally—a sharp rise from

2009, when only 64% reported going online (Lopez et al., 2013). Latino Internet users are also more

likely than White Internet users to go online using a mobile device (76% versus 60%). This preference for

mobile devices helps explain why gaps in mobile phone ownership have also effectively disappeared, with

86% of Latinos reporting owning a cell or smart phone, compared with 76% in 2009 (Lopez et al., 2013).

Although the increased affordability of digital devices is unquestionably a factor in these trends, the goals

that Latinos seek to address by engaging these technologies are an important, and often unstudied,

explanatory factor.

Furthermore, scholars have generally framed technology adoption or acceptance as an

individualized set of choices (see Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003, for a review). Instead, we

argue that focusing on familial contexts provides more nuanced perspectives on immigrants’ motivations

for purchasing and utilizing ICTs. A familial approach is particularly appropriate in the case of U.S. Latinos;

according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2014), the majority (77%) of the 14.7 million Latino households in

2 We define immigrant families as those in which at least one parent was born outside of the United

States.

3 Hispanic and Latino are often used interchangeably as ethnic referents. Researchers have not noted a

distinct preference for one term over the other among U.S. adults with roots in Spanish-speaking

countries (Taylor, Lopez, Martinez, & Velasco, 2012). In this article, we use Latino except when we cite

studies that explicitly used Hispanic as the referent term.

4 The National Center for Children in Poverty defines low-income as growing up below 200% of the federal

poverty threshold; for a family of four, the threshold in 2014 was $24,008 (Jiang et al., 2016).