Global Digital Divide as a Social Issue Research Paper

Introduction

The global digital

Divide is used to define the difference between those who have the ability to access the global information and those who have limited access. The development of the internet is evidently uneven throughout the world, even though its accessibility is used as one of the major indicators of prosperity in both economic and social development in society (Mauro & Sandra 1). According to the 2002 global internet accessibility report, approximately less than 10% of the population in the world use the internet, while the difference between its usages continues to widen since the early part of the last decade (Mauro & Sandra 1). The gap is remarkably big as statistical information indicates that by the year 2002, the internet use in Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, and nations in the South of Asia ranged from less than 1% of the population. On the contrary, the developed and emerging economies like United States, Iceland, South Korea, and many others had between 50 and 60% of their population use the internet (Mauro & Sandra 1).

The majority of literature on the global digital divide indicates that many believe that ability to access information is a critical step towards achieving development goals. That is, if societies around the globe are able to bridge the gap between those who have and those who do not in relation to information technology, then the development problems would be minimized at a considerable level (Mauro & Sandra 49)

The first section of this paper seeks to analyze the problem of a global digital divide in the dimension of “personal trouble” of individual countries and in the view of “public issue” of the international community. The second section seeks to explain how social policy solutions to the issue differ depending on the two theoretical perspectives. The exponential growth of the internet and other information communication technologies, and widening disparities in usage have caught the imagination of many sociologists, in an attempt to understand the greater historical aspect of the interrelationship between individual ability and community effort in its adaptability. The key theoretical concepts lie in the concepts and beliefs surrounding two different views. The first being that the global digital divide is a result public or international community’s failure to develop a mechanism to narrow the gap of digital communication between the haves and have-nots. The second is the belief that individual persons of a particular country or region’s failure are what should be attributed to the widening of the global digital divide gap.

The global digital divide as a “personal trouble”

Human history is full of several aspects of technological developments that have defined how people leave. In fact, technology may be viewed as part and parcel of human nature and existence. Mitchell (3) observes that technology is what separates Homo sapiens from other species on the earth. In this view, it is noted that as humans become more dependent on technology, so the attitude towards its usage varies. That is to say, different individuals have developed a strong interest in its adoption and use than others, influenced by several other factors. These cultures are identified as cultural and religious orientations and beliefs of individual members of the society. Ihde (12) states that technology has been tacitly applied to explain the concept of progress or lack of it in society today.

Despite being considered one of the developed economies of the world with higher information communication technology consumption, Canada has been has exposed a unique kind of digital divide among its youth, in relation to use and experience. This is despite the high rate of internet connectivity within this country. A study commissioned by the Ministry of Industry in 2003 revealed that although a vast part of the nation is connected to internet, the usage is still varied among the youth (Looker & Thiessen 2). The main findings, however, suggest that some factors like proximity to urban centers encouraged more accessibility, thus higher usage unlike the rural areas. But still among the urban youths who participated in the survey, there was still a big variance in terms of frequency of usage as well as difference in competency. Another significant finding was that female youths spent less time on computers than their male counterparts hence exhibited low skills competency, despite equal accessibility. What generally makes the difference in a country believed to be among the most developed in terms of ICT connectivity?

To ex plain the above phenomenon, it is important to highlight what Mill (12) describes as the shifting of problem of the decade or the crisis of our period, that have inherently shifted from the external responsibility of the society to the individuals responsibility to improve his or her own life through embracing of the changes. In other words, the individual youth’s failure to embrace and learn more about technology should never be blamed on the entire society’s failure to help out. To emphasize on this stance, Ihde (60) explains the way in which a “rational and a progressive set of individual beliefs and interests have come into being through science”, which explains more on how it is likely to affect the mass consumption of the ICT across the global arena. In fact he suggests that the belief of utopian progressivism is associated with the roots of human modernity, where individuals’ problems have played a role in the failure of certain sections of the society from the times industrial revolution to today’s ICT revolution (Ihde 61).

The individual Culture and Skepticism

The social concern among individual members of the society has been used to explain some aspects of negativity towards the widening of the gap of the digital divide. Since the beginning of the 20^th century, many cultural groups have expressed concern on the negative impact of technology. According to Burke (6), the existence of technology has be come an element of human existence although some specific members of the society have regarded its negative impact on the social development of the society as the main reason to shun it. He states that the individual trouble with technology usage is not in technology itself but an attitude to it, for many of these individual societal members fail to recognize it for what it is, hence end up mistaking it for another thing, which is “an end in itself rather than a means” (Burke 27).

According to Mills (13), in several occasions, people often create the increased sense of ‘being moved by obscure forces within themselves which they are unable to define.” In other words, if individual members of the society are unable to explain the actual aspect of the digital technology in the market, they are likely to avoid it and stick to what they know best. This could be backed by the belief that advanced economies, which host almost the entire group of industries manufacturing the digital gadgets, make their individual populations more aware and knowledgably informed about the technology, before any attempt is made to move abroad. Moreover, the gadgets are made to conform to the culture of the advanced economies, which some individual people from less advanced economies are not willing to comply with. The cultural difference between decent families and streetwise ones tend to infuse a sense of mainstream values within their children, unlike their streetwise counterparts (Bolt & Crawford 11). Those decent families take individual initiatives to teach their children of better ways of life, as opposed to streetwise parents who would take little interest to develop etiquette of life, including providing better opportunity to learn in schools. This could explain why there is a digital divide between elite families of American society and those in the low social ladder. In other words, it is believed to be an individual initiative to fail to adopt better lifestyle through ICT adoption or not.

The global digital divide as a “public issue”

The uneven growth of digital technology usage has been attributed to many factors related to economic, political and social structure of the society. For instance, the developing nations have no stable source of energy, hence the limited accessibility of digital technology like internet services Bolt & Crawford, 27). The other reason that has perpetrated the digital divide across the continents as well as within nations is social structure of the communities, always associated with poor vs. the rich. In this perspective, the poor are literally forced to live within the lower social structure that does not allow them to access the ICT and its benefits. The connection between economic wellbeing of the society and politics also create some belief that it’s the poor political structure coupled with lack of political will embodied within the political class that perpetrates poverty of information.

The social structure of the communities

The first major theoretical problem is the belief that ICT or internet for that matter is for everyone’s for the taking; that its usage is not hampered by any national or regional limitations. In fact, scholars have noted that this form of optimism is not true as internet has been found “to reinforce the already existing class and social relations both within and across countries” (Mauro & Sandra 68). Critics of this theoretical point of view point out to the fact that just a few privately owned giant communication companies supported by governments have literally found a dominant ground to enable themselves rather than the people. They further argue these big media houses have made internet a “shopping mall” where they successfully defraud the limited internet users with viral marketing and sales (Mauro & Sandra 69; Roy 36). This makes internet more of a private property rather than a public property as earlier predicted in the early years of its usage.

Many scholars have warned that unless ICT is adopted in the interest of the citizens, the present path it follows will most likely perpetuate inequality that is seen to day. In fact, the common ground among sociologists and development experts is that internet has empowered a few and discriminated on the majority of the population of the world, creating a much wider gap between the high social class from the low social class. Interestingly, this trend has not only happened in the cross-border analysis of its impact but has also affected the citizens within the so called developed nations. Ihde (247) candidly puts its, the internet revolution as a tool to build “freedom, productivity, and communication comes hand in hand with the denunciation of the ‘digital divide’ induced by inequality on the internet.”

Economic Variance of Different Countries

Much data from different nations indicate that global digital divide is a factor of economic difference of various nations between and within the continents and nations. These data associate the trend to such parameters of measuring economic capability like per capita, GDP and GNP, income as seen in the view of cost of access (Mauro & Sandra 132) The cross-sectional analysis of data indicates that the less developed countries have limited access to ICT, as opposed to developed and emerging economies. This concept makes it easy to associate the problem as a public issue due to the fact that many of these countries are not strong enough, as far as economic indicators are concerned. Others on the other hand found out that the variance between the rich and poor nations is also a factor of competition in the ICT business, hence lowering price and increases accessibility.

The Political Environment

The global politics is certainly an issue that cannot escape the view of many scholars and general observers as a whole. It is said that political situation as structured by global world means that the growth of ICT can never be linear, as modern democracies tend to gain more advantage when it comes to political stability and decision making on matters affecting the global world. The empirical literature suggests that the global politics has created a dependency theory that has helped analyzed the world system in relation to political structure (Burke 212). In fact the belief that advanced democracies use their political superiority coupled with economic prowess to dictate terms of negotiation in the global arrangements leaves the less developed countries with little options to make political decisions on their own. That is, they are continuously given terms under which to operate from.

Likewise, others view the digital divide as an outcome of global integration of various control system designed by capitalist nations led by the United States and European nations. The main core of to this theory is that tighter integration of the world nations does not necessarily lead to linear growth, as it only depends on whether the particular country is within the core of at the periphery of activities as defined by how they relate.

Social Policy Solutions

From the above analysis, it’s possible to conclude that digital divide basically has a future just like any other social conditions in the modern society. The open fact is that global digital divide as a “personal trouble” does not explain many facts as seen across nations. While human capability and cultural beliefs and willingness to adopt the ICT may play critical role in the narrowing of the digital divide, it’s evident that little will be achieved if economic, political and social structure of the global community is not observed. This leads us to a very important concept; that the global digital divide is more of a public issue than a personal trouble.

However, social policy solutions have been seen in the dimension of bridging the digital divide with different perspectives. These policies are aimed at minimizing the gap between the haves and have-nots, as far as ICT is concerned. Importantly, these policies are known to have implications as they are likely to influence different tenets of the society such as economic, political, social and cultural.

The Policies and their Implication

The first theory that digital divide is as a ‘personal trouble’ has seen many nations adopting the policy strategies that target the individual capability development. For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in collaboration with the government of Costa Rica developed a policy that targeted the increase of technological options and capacity of the users (Bolt & Crawford 192). In this approach, the policy targeted an increased capacity of usage by educating the public and encouraging them to acknowledge the benefits of ICT and more importantly. However, the problem was that this program did not succeed as much as it was expected. In essence, the policy failed to first address the accessibility issue before venturing into capacity development. In other words, they prioritized the solutions targeting ‘personal trouble’ and ignored ‘public issue’ problems.

However, they realized the shortcomings of this policy implementation and reverted to increase accessibility of developing more ICT infrastructure. Currently, the constructors have developed a strong network of internet accessibility, supported by the useful application manuals. The strengthening of the solar power in the villages has even increased the accessibility as many designated centers have helped to develop more computer centers.

Although increased accessibility is an important part of digital divide gap reduction strategy, it’s evident that developing these structures without clear emphasis on proper ‘content’ may prove a futile approach to the problem solution Bolt & Crawford 130). In other words, the ICT applications and its contents must be offered in the real perspective of the realm of life that would benefit the local community. That is, the need to develop contents that are locally acceptable culturally and socially by the target population.

However, the above policy initiatives as adopted by many developing countries are not sufficient as far as the needs of the global communities are concerned (Ihde 87; Charon 39). The first point is that none of the above policy initiatives can be achieved if social, political and economic issues are not addressed in a more multidimensional manner.

The digital divide is in fact a social problem, and more importantly, it is a public issue that needs the attention of social policies and not technology oriented policies. Although it is possible to acknowledge that fact that inequities have existed from time immemorial, it is important to accept the need to continue making an objective oriented public policies that target mass rather than individuals’ abilities. Although faster ICT usage and accessibility can bridge the gap, the need to strengthen the social disparities is as important as, and even more critical than the technology itself. Ihde (89) observes that the single most appropriate and effective way to ameliorate the ICT application and success is through the development of public policy documents that address political, social and economic issues in a multidimensional perspective as well as single units.

Of the most critical importance is the need to balance ICT development as capitalism and the public interests Ihde (89). It is realized that it is the private sector which has the resources to invest. The governments should develop policies that help the public build strong incentives to attract the investors. Communities will therefore be able to identify core areas to attract these investors. It is therefore the role of policy makers to create a favorable regulatory environment that will attract the ICT investors, as the same time protecting the interest of the public.

Works Cited

Bolt, David & Crawford, Ray. Digital divide: Computers and our children’s future. New York: TV Books. 2000. Print.

Burke, James. Connections. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1978.

Charon, Joel. Ten Questions: A Sociological Perspective. New York. Cengage Learning, 2009.

Ihde, Don. Technology and the lifeworld. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. 1990.

Looker, Dianne & Thiessen, Victor. The digital divide in Canadian schools: factors affecting students access to and use of information technology. Statistical Canada, 2006. Web.

Mauro, Guillen & Sandra Suarez. Explaining the global digital divide: economic, political and sociological drivers of cross-national internet use. Social forces. 2005. Print.

Mitchell, Matthew. Possible, Probable and Preferable Futures of the Digital Divide. In formation Science, 2003. Web.

Roy, William. Making Societies: The Historical Construction of Our World. Chicago. Pine Forge Press. 2001. Print.