Digital Divide

An Emergent Definition

The term digital divide was originally introduced in the 1990s to refer to the gap between individuals who have access to ICTs and those who do not. The concept has developed from a construct that highlights the distinction between information rich and information poor members of society; this term was initially introduced to describe people with and without physical access to telephones and personal computers. As the Internet gained a foothold, issues of access were expanded to include online technologies and the broadband infrastructure necessary to support adequate Internet connections. In its earliest conception, access was primarily linked to physical ownership of these technologies.

On a very fundamental level, the digital divide describes a negative space. Embedded in the term is a sense of urgency that implies a need to take action to fill this space. Appeals to address the digital divide suggest that improving access to the digital technologies will become increasingly more critical among individuals and among global competitors. There is growing concern that people without access to the Internet are unable to participate meaningfully in the economic, social, and political life that is increasingly being lived on the Internet and through the communication and creation capacities that it affords. Assertions have been made that these disparities require acknowledgment and further study of the contributing factors and implications if the digital divide is to be adequately addressed in order to narrow this gap.

[Page 205]A holistic understanding also requires reframing the digital divide as an emerging construct that has evolved to represent much more than a lack of access to ICTs and digital resources. In recent years for example, it has widened in scope to include more-specific technologies, such as access to high-speed and wireless Internet services. More importantly, the definition has been expanded to include access to digitally mediated knowledge and the resulting skills and competencies essential for personal, professional, and economic success in life.

Contributing Factors

Overall, physical access is no longer a major issue in industrially developed countries. However, due to affordability (cost), weak information technology infrastructure, lack of reliable electricity, and usability issues, access to the Internet continues to be a problem in developing countries. By 2003, scholars had underlined the importance of looking at the digital divide not as a gap focused on access to the Internet on a bipolar scale but as a continuum; they argued that degrees of access to the Internet must be assessed. To illustrate this point, consider the following three scenarios, noting the spectrum of access among (1) a person with high-speed Internet in the United States, (2) a student in Accra who uses the Internet at an Internet café, and (3) a fisherman in a small village in Ethiopia who does not understand enough English to complete an online Diversity Visa Lottery form and must have his friends fill out the form for him. These examples demonstrate at least three levels of access to the Internet that are multilayered and complex. Thus, approaching the digital divide dichotomously is imprecise and overlooks essential factors.

...