A Framing Analysis of African-American and Native-American Owned Micro-enterprises: How Can Information and Communication Technology Support Their Development?

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been touted as means of increasing economic development by providing improvements in the lives of people where the use of technology leads to better livelihoods. Despite the high access and use of ICTs in the United States, high unemployment and poverty rates among Native Americans and African Americans continues to rise while deepening existing income inequalities. Through a framing analysis of Native American and African American micro-entrepreneurs, this paper investigates the use of ICTs in six micro-enterprises. Our findings reveal strong community and infrastructure frames in Native American micro-enterprises and their use of Information Technology (IT) products and services for business and economic development. The African American micro-enterprises studied showed low levels of trust affecting their use of ICTs in their businesses. This has important implications for how ICTs may support these micro-enterprises.