Digital divide

The digital divide refers to disparate access to and understanding of information technology, especially computers and the Internet.

Origins of the term

The term digital divide refers to the gap between those with regular, effective access to digital and information technology, and those without it. According to Mehra (2004), the digital divide is “the troubling gap between those who use computers and the internet and those who do not” (Mehra et al, 2004, p.782). It encompasses both physical access to technology, hardware and, more broadly, the resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen. Lisa Servon argued in 2002 that the digital divide "is a symptom of a larger and more complex problem -- the problem of persisten poverty and inequality" (2002, p.2). Groups often discussed in the context of a digital divide include socioeconomic (rich/poor), racial (white/minority), or geographical (urban/rural). Also as stated by Mehra (2004), The four major components that attribute to digital divide are “socioeconomic status, with income, educational level, and race among other factors associated with technological attainment” (Mehra et al, 2004, p.782). The term global digital divide refers to differences in technology access between countries.

The term “Digital Divide” also refers to the imbalance that exists amongst groups of society regarding their ability to use ICT (Information Communication Technology) to its most utmost performance. This is most commonly due to the fact of, the different levels of literary and skills in the hierarchy. In others words, it’s the unequal access to some sectors of the community to ICT and the necessity of acquisition of related skills.

The term came into regular usage in the mid-1990s. US President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore used the term in a 1996 speech in Knoxville, TN, though the term had appeared in several news articles prior to 1996. Larry Irving, a former United States Assistant Secretary of Commerce and technology adviser to the Clinton Administration, used the term in a series of reports in the mid 1990s.

The term initially referred to gaps in ownership of computers between groups. One area of significant focus was school computer access; in the 1990s, rich schools were much more likely to provide their students with regular computer access. In the late 1990s, rich schools were much more likely to have internet access.

The E-rate program (officially the Schools and Libraries Program of the Universal Service Fund), authorized in 1996 and implemented in 1997, directly addressed the technology gap between rich and poor schools by allocating money from telecommunications taxes to poor schools without technology resources. Though the program faced criticism and controversy in its methods of disbursement, it did provide over 100,000 schools with additional computing resources, and internet connectivity.

Recently, discussions of a digital divide in school access have broadened to include technology related skills and training in addition to basic access to computers and internet access.

Current usage

According to a July 2007 Pew Internet & American Life report, "47% of Americans have a broadband connection at home," an increase of 5% in one year.

Due to the range of criteria which can be used to assess technology access, and the lack of detailed data on some aspects of technology usage, the exact nature of the digital divide is both contextual and debatable. Criteria that are often used to distinguish between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' of the digital divide tend to focus on access to hardware, access to the internet, and details relating to these categories. In the context of schools, which have consistently been involved in the discussion of the divide, current formulations of the divide focus more on how (and whether) computers are used by students, and less on whether there are computers or internet connections.

Global digital divide

Another key dimension of the Digital Divide is the global digital divide, reflecting existing economic divisions in the world. This global digital divide widens the gap in economic divisions around the world. Countries with a wide availability of internet access can advance the economics of that country on a local and global scale. In today's society, jobs and education are directly related to the internet. In countries where the internet and other technologies are not accessible, education is suffering, and uneducated people cannot compete in our global economy. This leads to poor countries suffering greater economic downfall and richer countries advancing their education and economy. However, when dealing with the global aspect of digital divide there are several factors that lead to digital divide. For example, country of residence, ethnicity, gender, age, educational attainment, and income levels are all factors of the global aspects of digital divide (Cheung, 2004). In addition, a survey shows that , in 15 Western European countries females, manual workers, elderly, and the less educated have less internet access than males, professional, the young, and the well educated” (Cheung, 2004, p. 63).The digital divide is a term used to refer to the gap between people who have access to the internet and those that do not. It can also refer to the skills people have – the divide between peoples who are at ease using technology to access and analyse information and those who are not.

Bridging the digital divide

Technology offers a unique opportunity to extend learning support beyond the classroom, something that has been difficult to do until now. “The variety of functions that the internet can serve for the individual user makes it “unprecedentedly malleable” to the user’s current needs and purposes” (Bargh & McKenna, 2001, p. 577). The existence of a digital divide, however, means that millions of children are currently denied this opportunity to extend their learning. Recognition of digital divide as an immense problem has led scholars, policymakers, and the public (Mehra et al, 2004) to understand the “potential of the internet to improve everyday life for those on the margins of society and to achieve greater social equity and empowerment” (Mehra et al, 2004, p.782).

Related issues

Other issues include the following:

• gender issues
• disability issues
• role of language
• cultural inequality regarding the content available on the World Wide Web
• the role of educators in reducing the digital divide in the classroom

The United Nations is aiming to raise awareness of the divide by way of the World Information Society Day which takes place yearly on May 17.

National interest and social benefit

There are a variety of arguments about why closing the digital divide is important. The major arguments are as follows:

1. Economic equality: Some think that access to the Internet is a basic component of civil life that some developed countries aim to guarantee for their citizens. Telephone service is often considered important for the reasons of security. Health, criminal, and other types of emergencies may indeed be handled better if the person in trouble has access to a telephone. Also important seems to be the fact that much vital information for education, career, civic life, safety, etc. is increasingly provided via the Internet, especially on the web. Even social welfare services are sometimes administered and offered electronically.
2. Social mobility: If computers and computer networks play an increasingly important role in continued learning and career advancement, then education should integrate technology in a meaningful way to better prepare students. Without such offerings, the existing digital divide disfavors children of lower socio-economic status, particularly in light of research showing that schools serving these students in the USA usually utilize technology for remediation and skills drilling due to poor performance on standardized tests rather than for more imaginative and educationally demanding applications.
3. Social equality: As education integrates technology, societies such as in the developing world should also integrate technology to improve life. This will reduce the gender inequalities. Access to information through internet and other communication tools will improve her life chances and enable her to compete globally with her Contemporaries even in the comfort of her rural settings.
4. Democracy: Use of the Internet has implications for democracy. This varies from simple abilities to search and access government information to more ambitious visions of increased public participation in elections and decision making processes. Direct participation (Athenian democracy) is sometimes referred to in this context as a model.
5. Economic competitiveness and growth: The development of information infrastructure and active use of it is inextricably linked to economic growth. Information technologies in general tend to be associated with productivity improvements even though this can be debatable in some circumstances. The exploitation of the latest technologies is widely believed to be a source of competitive advantage and the technology industries themselves provide economic benefits to the usually highly educated populations that support them. The broad goal of developing the information economy involves some form of policies addressing the digital divide in many countries with an increasingly greater portion of the domestic labor force working in information industries.
6. National Security: It has been speculated that the Digital Divide leaves those most susceptible to terrorism with no other options. Because they are being left behind, they rebel against modern society through acts of terrorism (www.digitaldivide.org).

Digital divide in the context of e-democracy

The theoretical concepts of e-democracy are still in early development, but in practice 'blogs (web logs), wikis and mailing lists are having significant effects in broadening the way democracy operates. There is, as yet, no consensus among scholars about the possible outcomes of this revolution. One of the main problems associated with the digital divide as applied to a liberal democracy is the capacity to participate in e-government - in the extreme case, exclusively computer-based democratic participation (deliberation forums, online voting, etc) would mean that no access meant no vote. Therefore, there is a risk that some social groups will be under-represented (or others over-represented) in the policy formation processes and this would be incompatible with the equality principles of democracy.

Overcoming the digital divide

Many devotees of the open content, free software, and open access movements believe that these movements help equalize access to digital tools and information. Projects like One Laptop per Child and 50x15 offer a partial solution to the global digital divide; these projects tend to rely heavily upon open standards and free open source software. Programmer and free software advocate Richard Stallman has highlighted the importance of free software among groups concerned with the digital divide such as the World Summit on the Information Society. Additional participants in this endeavor include the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development (www.un-gaid.org) and the Digital Alliance Foundation (www.ictefa.org).Additionally, “One strategy is to transfer goal-setting, decision making, and choice-determining processes into the hands of the disadvantaged users in order that they ‘fit’ internet into their daily lives in ways that they themselves consider to be meaningful” (Mehra et al, 2004, p. 797). Yet another solution is to better understand the lifestyle of a minority or marginalized community and what all it encompasses (Mehra et al, 2004). In doing this researchers can figure out “what is meaningful to them [minorities and marginalized users] and how they use (or do not use) different forms of the internet for meeting their objectives” (Mehra et al, 2004, p. 799). Furthermore, “a need for a re-examination of questions based on traditional ways of looking at people, their social dynamics, and their interactions with technology” (Mehra et al, 2004, p. 799). However, researchers still tend to “set a ‘method’ for studying the impact of internet use or assuming a golden rule for application that will function in all situations will not work” (Mehra et al, 2004, p. 797).

In his book Digital Nation, Anthony G. Wilhelm calls on politicians to develop a national ICT agenda.

See also

• 50x15
• Achievement gap
• Digital Divide in the People's Republic of China
• Generation gap
• Income gap
• Information society
• Knowledge divide
• Knowledge society
• Opportunity gap
• VIA pc-1 Initiative

External links

Relevant Organizations

• Digitaldivide.org
• Digital Divide Network
• Digital Alliance Foundation: Capacity-building ICT Skills

Studies, Reports and Articles

• The Pew Internet & American Life Project tracks internet usage in the United States.
• Bridging the digital divide: An opportunity for growth for the 21st century Strategy White Paper
• EU policies on EurActiv.com
• "Digital Divide into Digital Opportunities" by Marc Sehrt, for the UN Chronicle
• Three Stages of the Digital Divide: Economic divide, Usability divide, Empowerment divide
• Crossing the Divide & Measuring Digital Opportunity for America's Children Reports from the Center for Justice Tolerance and Community at the University of California, Santa Cruz
• Focus group reports from a 3-year NSF-funded study of service-learning and the digital divide

Scholarly Literature

• IT & Society Journal Journal published by Stanford University. Publication suspended in 2004, but has several issues devoted to the digital divide
• "Generational Differences in Information Technology Use and Political Involvement" (2006)
• "Closing the Digital Divide with Service-Learning" (2005)
• "Digital Citizenship: Parameters of the Digital Divide" (2004)

Research Projects

• Digital Citizeship: A Service-Learning Approach to the Digital Divide

References

• Bargh, John A.; McKenna, Katelyn Y.A. (2004), "The Internet and Social Life", Annual Review of Psychology, 55: 573–90
• Cheung, Charles (2004), "Identity construction and self-presentation on personal homepages: Emancipatory potentials and reality constraints", Web Studies, New York: Oxford: In D. Guantlett & R. Horsley (Eds.), pp. 53–68
• Compaine, Benjamin M. (ed.) (2001), The Digital Divide: Facing a Crisis or Creating a Myth?, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, ISBN 0262531933 {{citation}}: |first= has generic name (help)
• Mehra, Bharat; Merkel, Cecelia; Bishop, Ann P. (2004), "The internet for empowerment of minority and marginalized users", New Media and Society, 6: 781–802
• Servon, Lisa (2002), Bridging the Digital Divide: Technology, Community, and Public Policy, Malden, MA: Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-23242-7