I think that this issue about the terminology is valid, although I disagree with the characterization that the issue is purely economic. Paul DiMaggio, Eszter Hargittai, Coral Celeste and Steven Shafer's paper "Digital Inequality: From Unequal Access to Differentiated Use" goes into the issue of the messiness of the term "digital divide". Instead they argue for the adoption of the term "digital inequality". I think that the idea has merit.
http://www.eszter.com/research/c05-digitalinequality.html Kelvin Wong Department of Computer Science University of Victoria Victoria, British Columbia, Canada My Blog on Aboriginal People and Technology http://nativetech.blogspot.com/ -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chuck Sherwood Sent: March 1, 2005 5:48 AM To: Digital Divide Subject: [DDN] [Fwd: [Politech] World Bank report questions size of "digital divide" [econ]] To All: This is the kind of "knownothing" analysis that is being generated by the World Bank report. Declan's listserv is read by many thought leaders and his analysis will contribute to the general misunderstanding and misinformation about the Digital Divide. Your comments should be addressed to him directly at the Politech email address. Chuck Sherwood -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Politech] World Bank report questions size of "digital divide" [econ] Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 01:04:11 -0500 From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> To: politech@politechbot.com I've never completely understood the term "digital divide." Perhaps it's mere parochialism: I live in Washington, DC and have access to DSL and cable modem connections and can purchase a T1 line. But I don't think so -- the real problem is the term "digital divide" itself. Any such "divide" is necessarily a subset of an economic divide. I have access to technological resources because the U.S. and its peer nations have stable governments, functioning court systems, not-entirely-insane tax rates, functioning bank systems, and pay some attention to property rights. That encourages investment, both domestic and foreign, and fosters an environment that lets a middle class grow and communications providers prosper. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
