Ambiguity and Uncertainty in the “Last Mile”: Using Sense-making to Explore How Rural Broadband Networks Are Created

Marco Adria, Dan L. Brown · 2012 · The Journal of Community Informatics

Summary. Alberta's government built a world-leading fiber-optic broadband network for rural communities in 2005, yet the province ranked last in rural broadband access by 2008. Using interviews and sensemaking theory, the authors found that industry decision-makers and stakeholders created self-fulfilling prophecies about the network through collective interpretation, which paralyzed efforts to promote actual community use of the infrastructure.

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Adria, M., & Brown, D. L.. (2012). Ambiguity and Uncertainty in the “Last Mile”: Using Sense-making to Explore How Rural Broadband Networks Are Created. The Journal of Community Informatics. https://doi.org/10.15353/joci.v8i3.3031

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  title   = {Ambiguity and Uncertainty in the “Last Mile”: Using Sense-making to Explore How Rural Broadband Networks Are Created},
  author  = {Marco Adria and Dan L. Brown},
  journal = {The Journal of Community Informatics},
  year    = {2012},
  doi     = {10.15353/joci.v8i3.3031},
  url     = {https://doi.org/10.15353/joci.v8i3.3031}
}

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Details

DOI: 10.15353/joci.v8i3.3031
Countries: Canada
Regions: North America
Categories: broadband-and-digital, regional-innovation-systems
Added: 2026-04-28