What is the Digital Divide?

What is the "Digital Divide" and why should you care?

Wikipedia defines the term digital divide as "the gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it. It includes the imbalances in physical access to technology as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen. In other words, it’s the unequal access by some members of the society to information and communications technology, and the unequal acquisition of related skills. Groups often discussed in the context of a digital divide include socioeconomic (rich/poor), racial (majority/minority), generational (young/old) or geographical (urban/rural)."

Here are some references to help you explore this subject:

Wikipedia definition of the digital divide (lots of references and links)

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide

Income fuels the digital divide

• http://money.cnn.com/2000/06/20/life/q_divide/

Tackling the digital divide (if we can find out what it is)

• http://www.flexibility.co.uk/issues/debates/divide.htm

Dubious as to whether poor people need technology?

• http://www.flexibility.co.uk/issues/debates/divide3.htm

How real is the divide?

• http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12/gurstein/

Is there a digital divide?

• http://cjtc.ucsc.edu/docs/r_techreport5.pdf

Mind the Gap: The Digital Divide as the Civil Rights Issue of the New Millennium

• http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/jan00/carvin.htm

Haves, Have-Nots, and Have-to-Haves: Net Effects of the Digital Divide (great references and footnotes)

• http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/fallsem98/final_papers/Rozner.html

Bridges.org website reference page

• http://www.bridges.org/digital_divide

E-learning in the Developing Countries, Digital Divide into Digital Opportunities

• http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2003/issue4/0403p45.asp

2002 Ford Foundation Report: Community Technology Centers as Catalysts for Community Change

• http://www.bctpartners.com/resources/CTCs_as_Catalysts.pdf

Digital Divide Bookshelf + Reviews from Amazon.Com

Bridging the Digital Divide by Lisa Servon

“Bridging the Digital Divide makes it clear that the digital divide is only one symptom of persistent poverty -- a problem that touches us all. Fortunately, this is a case in which treating the symptom may help cure the disease. Servon’s book shows us that programs aimed at closing the divide are creating pathways out of poverty for many low-income technology users, who are acquiring career skills, educational advantages, and new knowledge that can lead to living-wage jobs”.

-Laura Breeden, Director, America Connects Consortium

Bridging the Digital Divide investigates problems of unequal access to information technology. The author redefines this problem, examines its severity, and lays out what the future implications might be if the digital divide continues to exist.

• Examines unequal access to information technology in the United States.
• Analyses the success or failure of policies designed to address the digital divide.
• Draws on extensive fieldwork in several US cities.
• Makes recommendations for future public policy.

Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide by Pippa Norris

There is widespread concern that the explosive growth of the Internet is exacerbating existing inequalities between the information rich and poor. Digital Divide sets out to examine the evidence for access and use of the Internet in 179 nations across the world. A global divide is evident between industrialized and developing societies. A social divide is apparent between rich and poor within each nation. And within the online community, evidence for a democratic divide is emerging between those who do and do not use Internet resources to engage, mobilize and participate in public life.

Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide by Karen Mossberger, Caroline J. Tolbert, and Mary Stansbury

That there is a "digital divide"—which falls between those who have and can afford the latest in technological tools and those who have neither in our society—is indisputable. VIRTUAL INEQUALITY redefines the issue as it explores the cascades of that divide, which involve access, skill, political participation, as well as the obvious economics. Computer and Internet access are insufficient without the skill to use the technology, and economic opportunity and political participation provide primary justification for realizing that this inequality is a public problem and not simply a matter of private misfortune.

Defying those who say the divide is growing smaller, this volume, based on a unique national survey that includes data from over 1800 respondents in low-income communities, shows otherwise. In addition to demonstrating why disparities persist in such areas as technological abilities, the survey also shows that the digitally disadvantaged often share many of the same beliefs as their more privileged counterparts: African-Americans, for instance, are even more positive in their attitudes toward technology than whites are in many respects, contrary to conventional wisdom. The rigorous research on which the conclusions are based is presented accessibly and in an easy-to-follow manner.

Not content with analysis alone, nor the untangling of the complexities of policymaking, VIRTUAL INEQUALITY views the digital divide compassionately in its human dimensions and recommends a set of practical and common-sense policy strategies. Inequality, even in a virtual form this book reminds us, is unacceptable and a situation that society is compelled to address.