Information Flow and Peripherality in Remote Island Areas of Scotland

Communities in the more remote parts of areas which themselves are considered to be peripheral may feel doubly isolated. Access to information can help reduce negative effects of living and working in such communities, but, in turn, this peripherality creates barriers to information access. The purpose of this PhD research is to gain a greater understanding of the relationship between access to information and the effects of peripherality; using four remote communities in each of Shetland and The Western Isles of Scotland as case studies. To this end, interviews were conducted with representatives of just over a hundred businesses, community and voluntary groups from these peripheral communities, and with information providers serving them. The research was not concerned with a particular type of information, such as business, market or community information; but with all types of information need from within the target communities. This paper examines some of the findings, which point to a strong interdependency between geographical peripherality and exclusion from information, in remote communities where accessing information is described as being both more difficult and more necessary. These findings were presented at the “Europe at the Margins: EU Regional Policy, Peripherality and Rurality”, Regional Studies Association Conference, at Angers, France in April 2004.