Beyond Access: Contextualizing the Benefits of Broadband through Contributor Dynamics on Wikipedia

Broadband infrastructure is often assumed to reduce informational disparities by expanding access to digital platforms. Yet less is understood about how broadband shapes participation in peer production communities, where knowledge is collectively created and maintained. Using spatial regression models, we examine how broadband coverage influences who contributes and how participation patterns shift in geo-tagged Wikipedia edits across U.S. counties. We find that broadband expansion is strongly associated with increased contributions from local casual and regular editors while reducing reliance on bot-driven activity. However, contributions remain highly concentrated, as prolific editors continue to dominate production. Moreover, we uncover spatial spillover effects, where broadband gains in one county decrease participation in neighboring areas, revealing competitive dynamics in peer production. These findings challenge the assumption that access alone fosters equity, showing that broadband reshapes but does not evenly redistribute editorial influence, with implications for infrastructure policy, platform design, and sustaining inclusive peer production.

• Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing; Empirical studies in HCI.