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We analyze how the size and composition of social media repertoires is associated with key sociodemographic variables: age, gender, socioeconomic status, education, and occupation. Specifically, we ask what is the association between these variables and: (a) social media use as a whole, (b) the number of platforms people include in their social media repertoires, (c) the platforms included in such repertoires, and (d) the most prevalent repertoires? To answer these questions, we analyze data from an in-person survey (N = 700) about use of media and communication technologies conducted in 2016 in Argentina by a polling firm. Our findings indicate that: (a) the odds of using social media are higher among younger people, women, those with higher socioeconomic and educational levels, and those employed; (b) whereas an increase in age is associated with a decrease in the size of the repertoire, higher educational attainment is associated with an increase in the number of platforms included in the repertoire; (c) age, gender, education, and occupation are significantly associated with the inclusion of different platforms in the repertoire; and (d) some of these variables are significant for the uptake of different repertoires, but not others. We interpret these findings drawing upon scholarship about digital inequalities and social media repertoires, and we assess and reflect on their implications for research on the digital divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the Communist Party's call to build a harmonious society, China initiated its universal service program in 2004. This article aims to provide a data-based analysis of the effectiveness of China's digital divide policy. While China has achieved significant progress in narrowing the interprovincial and urban-rural digital disparities at the national level, the advancement of the penetration rate has lagged behind the expansion of the network. In addition, as this study shows, not all provinces are making progress at the same rate. Laying of more fiber and erection of more towers have diminishing effects on narrowing China's digital divide. To achieve a harmonious online nation, as sought by the Party, this study recommends that the Chinese regulators make a shift from the top-down infrastructure-centered approach to an end-user-oriented approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the scrap-handling/recycling system in Myanmar has adopted mobile telephony in its day-to-day operations, and how this has led to a rationalization of the sector. It focuses on work processes, information and price retrieval, risk management, efficiency, and coordination. Scrap-handlers and ragpickers in four townships of Myanmar were interviewed in three phases of fieldwork, and their mobile phone use was also observed. The findings provide insight into how mobile communication can streamline the day-to-day workings of a sector, and also the disadvantages experienced by those who do not have a mobile phone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employs a qualitative approach to examine whether and why some societal groups are disadvantaged more by their Internet use than others do. Due to the quantitative nature of most digital divide studies, thorough explanations for why different outcomes exist are lacking. Interviews were conducted with 48 Dutch families selected on the basis of educational level (high or low) and household characteristics (children and marital status). A distinction was made between the types of negative outcomes that families are confronted with and how they cope with those outcomes. The results show that the confrontation with negative outcomes of Internet use in itself seems similar for both educational groups. However, the way Internet users cope with negative outcomes differs between the two educational groups. Members of highly educated groups mostly try to take control themselves when faced with a negative outcome, while members of less educated groups often just experience negative outcomes and do not remedial actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simultaneous two-dimensional comparisons of time series data—vertically (static difference) and horizontally (Sicherl-time-distance)—for numerous ITU and Eurostat datasets show that estimates of the magnitude of digital divide can differ substantially between conventional static measures and Sicherl-time-distance, a dynamic measure of disparity. Comparing digital divide indicators with other indicators of social inequality (life expectancy, infant mortality), the analysis shows that high ICT growth rate improved well-being in developing countries and reduced some world inequalities. This methodology enables researchers, policy makers, and business managers how to draw new insights from existing data, including monitoring the attainment of targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As access to the Internet has become increasingly essential for social and economic participation, public domain Internet measurements have become indispensable for users to validate quality of service their network operator delivers and for policymakers to identify and address gaps in broadband infrastructure. This article evaluates public domain Internet performance measurements available for assessing the state of connectivity and developing universal access service quality standards in Canada. The analysis suggests that different approaches to Internet measurement represent complementary windows into a complex and fast evolving reality of broadband connectivity. Despite their potential shortcomings, large-scale crowdsourced open data network testing platforms have a central role to play in enabling broadband infrastructure policy coordination across different levels of government, empowerment of consumers, and achievement of universal service objectives for quality of service users experience when accessing the open Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are concerns across government, industry, and academia over the inadequacies of data on broadband Internet connections. These inadequacies are important to consider because government policies and regulations, industry strategies, and scholarly research can be impacted by inaccurate or distorted data. Given that there are ongoing discussions about policy initiatives to improve these data, this article sets out to critically review publicly available data, identify important limitations of these data, and profile studies that have used these data successfully. In this review, the dynamic nature of broadband data will be discussed and the tradeoffs of pursuing further investments to create better databases evaluated. This evaluation suggests a more fruitful research path would be to recognize and work around existing data drawbacks, using the studies profiled in this article as examples, to explore a multitude of issues related to broadband availability, adoption, and use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many universal access policies are based on the assumption that the removal of the digital divide will enhance social mobility. But this assumption is not supported by the available evidence. Using four waves of longitudinal data from Britain we show that Internet use has a positive effect on social class mobility, while controlling for age, gender, education, health, and previous social class membership between 1997 and 2013. In doing so, we contribute to a wider discussion of the relationships between social and digital inequalities and highlight the challenges and potential of this methodological approach for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our objectives for this article are twofold: first, to examine the convergence of nations with regard to ICT access; and second, to see whether countries in the same continental region (South and East Asia, West and Middle East Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, North America, South America, and Oceania) or having same initial ICT access have coalesced into groups. We constructed an ICT access index using three indicators (mobile phone, Internet, and broadband use per 100 population) for a sample of 198 nations for the 16-year period from 2000 to 2015. Results show that digital divide has declined in relative terms, but not in absolute terms. The countries, starting at lower ICT levels, are not adopting ICT faster than the leaders. Continental region-wise analysis also shows that the catch-up is maximum for already developed countries, and minimum for countries in African and Oceania continental regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the digital divide in terms of access and the cultural use purposes of the Internet in Finland, the United Kingdom, and Greece. The analysis is based on data from Finnish, British, and Greek sections of Eurobarometer collected in 2013 (N= 3,009). Separate measures for class and status are applied in the analysis. The findings indicate that both access to and use of the Internet for cultural purposes are affected by a number of interdependent factors, whose effects and strengths vary significantly among the countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the digital divide has moved beyond connectivity to skills and usage disparities. Yet for many older people lack of connectivity remains a challenge, and for those who do have access, skills and usage remain an issue. We report findings of an in-depth qualitative study of older people,s perceptions of online communications and also their actual experiences. Findings indicate that older people who are already socially well connected benefit from online communication more than those who are not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this investigation, a multifaceted model of Internet appropriation that encompasses four types of access—motivational, material, skills, and usage—is tested with a representative sample of the Dutch population. The analysis indicates that while the digital divide policies' focus has moved to skills and usage access, motivational and material access remain relevant since they are necessary through the entire process of Internet appropriation. Moreover, each type of access has its own ground of determination and they interact together to shape digital inequalities. Therefore, digital divide policies should address material, skills, and usage access simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The second-level digital divide, which focuses on skills and usage, calls for a rethink of conventional indices developed for measuring access to technology. We propose a superefficiency data envelopment analysis (DEA) framework to investigate Internet users’ online activity at an individual level by considering their access to information and communication technology (ICT), Internet literacy, and level of usage, and we offer a standard basis for measuring and comparing ICT users. We apply an ordinary least squares regression to explore the factors that influence users’ online activities. Our results show that Internet users who are female, older, less educated, not in white-collar positions, earning a higher monthly income, and living in nonurban areas are more active online when all online activities are considered at the same time. However, the factors that influence individual online activities are different. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the promise of broadband to improve the lives of persons with disabilities, there are wide disparities in access and usage between disabled and nondisabled populations. This article examines ten case studies of policies and programs promoting ICT and broadband access for persons with disabilities in the leading economies of the Asia-Pacific region, in order to identify factors behind programs that succeed on the basis of effectiveness and cost efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examined how caste influences adoption of information and communication technologies. It entailed a survey of 2750 farmers, who were interviewed in person, in rural Punjab (Pakistan), and two different methods for data analysis—data mining and indices-based statistical analysis. The analysis shows digital divides at the caste level. Furthermore, it shows that old and new technologies diffuse differently among castes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Digital inclusion research has focused overwhelmingly on access to information. But access to information by itself is of limited value unless the intended beneficiary has the capacity to use it. It is the use of information that delivers the benefits. However, in information and communication technologies for development literature, there is little empirical work on the process by which use of information delivers benefits. This study fills the gap by studying information use by poor female mobile phone users in rural India. It identifies six stages in the information use process and models them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study reports on knowledge gain, examined through three separate measures (free recall, comprehension and recognition) among high- and low-education groups who used two types of news media (newspaper vs. online) to consume two kinds of news (public affairs vs. entertainment). Results (n= 123) confirm the knowledge gap and validate concerns about the digital divide. Yet three different knowledge acquisition measures generated dissimilar findings: strong education effects for free recall, strong media format effects for recognition, and strong interaction effects between education and media format for comprehension. The implications of these inconsistencies are considered for measuring knowledge gaps in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a critical comparative analysis of mobile versus personal computer (PC)-based forms of Internet access. Drawing from an interdisciplinary body of literature, it illustrates a wide range of ways in which mobile Internet access offers lower levels of functionality and content availability; operates on less open and flexible platforms; and contributes to diminished levels of user engagement, content creation, and information seeking. At a time when a growing proportion of the online population is “mobile only,” these disparities have created what is termed here a mobile Internet underclass. The implications of this argument for digital divide policymaking and, more broadly, for the evolutionary trajectory of the Internet and the dynamics of Internet usage are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and communication technologies are blurring the boundaries between work and play. We present the first empirical investigation of gender gaps in virtual game economies. Analyzing big data sets from two major game economies, we find that player gender and character gender influence virtual wealth in different ways in different games. We conclude that this can be explained by different returns on female- and male-dominated play activities, that is, virtual pink- and blue-collar occupations. As the line between work and play increasingly blurs, researchers should track which occupations get to keep their conventional economic rewards, and which end up being remunerated in play money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate insight into the emergence of information societies is essential not only for understanding the social effects of information and communication technologies, but also for empowering stakeholders to promptly and appropriately respond to the challenges they encounter. One much-discussed challenge that is particularly in need of analytical clarity is the digital divide, which is difficult to empirically elaborate, given its complicated nature. It is prone to superficial interpretations that suit particular agendas. To address this problem, this article proposes a methodology that integrates and upgrades the analysis of absolute change, relative change, and time distance into a general multidimensional approach. With this methodology, target audiences have an intuitively persuasive and methodologically sound instrument that could reinforce trust in digital divide studies. The approach is applied in evaluating the Internet penetration gap between Slovenia and Denmark, which often serves as a benchmark for policymaking in Solvenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though the issue of empowerment has been widely discussed in debates across various research fields, public policy forums, and media, it is an ambiguous concept. This special issue focuses on empowerment and new media. The articles in this special issue, which advance innovative theoretical and methodological frameworks, focus on the theoretical grounding of the notion of empowerment; empirical research on structures and processes that shape the emergence of individual and collective empowerment within online communities; the value of Amartya Sen's capability approach for community informatics research; and development of a methodological framework for measuring and monitoring the dynamics of digital inequalities correctly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing literature is oriented toward examining how Internet access and use may affect social capital. The role of social capital in narrowing the digital divides has been frequently mentioned but few studies have empirically examined how various types of social capital may affect people's access and use of the Internet. Drawing on a two-wave national panel data set, this article aims to fill this gap. Results demonstrate that social capital facilitates Internet access and use. In particular resource-rich bonding social capital helps overcome the digital divides in access, general use, and online communication. Before the Internet can revitalize social capital, there must be the right social capital in place to close the digital divides. Highlighting the relationship between social connectivity and digital connectivity, the findings have important implications for policymakers and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Universal high-speed Internet access can productively transform a nation's economy. However, many municipalities in the United States have been left behind in terms of Internet penetration. Some municipal governments have tried to address this by launching initiatives that aim at offering citywide, universal broadband access. Unfortunately, most of these initiatives either have been discontinued or have ended in failure. Drawing on actor-network theory, we conducted a 3-year study to investigate the evolution of the Internet TV initiative in LaGrange, Georgia, in the United States. The results reveal distinct interpretations of the initiative by different actor groups (the government, the service providers, socioeconomically advantaged residents, and socioeconomically disadvantaged residents), at different stages of implementation, pointing to tensions among the various groups. These tensions reflect the structural problems embedded in the macro political, economic, and societal context. The findings offer insights for policymakers who intend to achieve universal broadband access. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The development of individuals’ digital skills has received much attention as a remedy for digital inequality. Although some researchers favor courses and guided learning for skills development, others propose learning by trial-and-error. Unfortunately, studies examining the value of the so-called “do-it-yourself approach” for the development of digital skills remain lacking. One difficulty lies in the vicious circle of lack of skill leading to infrequent Internet usage and vice versa, which limits the value of cross-sectional data for assessing the impact of this approach. We present longitudinal data on a random sample of Internet users in a Dutch city, which show that more frequent Internet use leads to more digital skills, but not the other way around. However, contrary to expectations about the potential of trial-and-error learning to reduce inequality, results also suggests that this approach is not always more beneficial to the “have-little” as compared to the “have-more.” The only inequality-reducing effect of this approach is that that older users profit more from it than younger users do. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introducing an econometric approach to quantify the digital divide, this article presents a new method to facilitate crossnational and in-depth sectional analyses of the digital divide within a consistent framework. It examines the sociodemographic topology of the digital divide in an extensive crossnational analysis covering six sociodemographic factors and twenty-five countries. The findings contradict in part the conclusions of previous research. Although there are differences between the social groups, not all of the tested segmentation factors mark major fault lines of the digital divide. The notions of a gender gap, an income divide, and a divide between urban and rural areas are rejected because between-group disparity proves to be only minor in comparison to overall inequality. However, education, age, and main vocational activity do indeed mark digital boundaries in many of the observed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing the reasons for-and the solutions to-the 'digital divide' has been on the public agenda since the emergence of the Internet. However, the term has meant quite different things, depending on the audience and the context, and these competing interpretations may in fact orient toward different policy outcomes. The goals of this article are twofold. First, the authors unpack the term 'digital divide' and examine how it has been deployed and interpreted across a range of academic and policy discourses. Second, through a framing experiment embedded within a nationally representative survey, the authors demonstrate how presenting respondents with two different conceptual frames of the digital divide may lead to different perceptions of who is most accountable for addressing the issue. From this, they discuss the dynamic relationship between the construction and communication of policy discourse and the public understanding of the digital divide, as well as implications for effective communication about the digital divide and information and communication technology policy to the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To answer the question in the title, the author divides a sample of developing countries according to whether they have experienced a rise or fall of the (absolute) digital divide in the Internet. He suggests that in countries where the divide is falling, incomes will tend to be relatively high, and vice versa in the case of a rising divide. This relationship is examined on the basis of simple regression analysis; the analysis indicates the hypothesis is true with a high level of significance. Interpretation of the findings is carried out mainly in relation to countries from Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. In short, recent changes in the digital divide are associated with global inequality rather than equality, although there are some important anomalies that need to be explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several composite indexes grouping several variables into a single figure have been proposed for measuring the digital divide. In this article, the authors analyze shortcomings of extant indexes. Using multivariate analysis tools, they show that in the definition of composite indexes it is possible to individuate a limited set of more influencing and significant variables. This finding suggests the possibility of replacing some redundant variables with other dimensions that include other aspects of the digital divide that are not considered in extant measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Web-based and theoretical studies often claim that Internet use can mobilize political participation, while survey-based studies generally conclude that Internet use will normalize political participation. This article aims to offer some reflections on the discrepancies between these mobilization and normalization theses. The authors argue that mobilization claims tend to focus on manifestations online in specific cases, whereas normalization theses are normally built on assessments of general Internet use patterns. Consequently, more specific surveys must be employed to evaluate the nature of political Internet use. Based on such a specific survey (n= 819), the authors investigate the use of two online vote advice applications (VAAs) during the 2006 Dutch parliamentary elections. VAAs are increasingly popular in democracies worldwide, especially among a group that is often considered 'apathetic' about electoral politics: youth. With structural equation modeling, however, the authors find that the use of the Dutch VAAs fits the mobilization thesis among youth and the normalization thesis among older people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine the determinants of information and communications technology (ICT) usage among low-income people in three developing countries: Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. Using two composite indicators, they focus on cross-country differences and similarities in ICT usage across gender, age, education, and income levels. The authors' analysis indicates that the single most important factor limiting the digitalization of low-income people in all three countries was lack of education. The impact of income itself was low although positive. Their findings also suggest that comprehensive measures that mix standard ICTs with very advanced ones can be misleading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital divide is conventionally measured in terms of information and communication technology (ICT) equipment diffusion, which comes down to counting the number of computers or phones, among other devices. This article fine-tunes these approximations by estimating the amount of digital information that is stored, communicated, and computed by these devices. The installed stock of ICT equipment in the consumer segment is multiplied with its corresponding technological performance, resulting in the “installed technological capacity” for storage (in bits), bandwidth (in bits per second), and computational power (in computations per second). This leads to new insights. Despite the rapidly decreasing digital equipment divide, there is an increasing gap in terms of information-processing capacity. It is shown that in 1996 the average inhabitant of the industrialized countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) had a capacity of 49 kibps more than its counterpart from Latin America and the Caribbean. Ten years later, this gap widened to 577 kibps per inhabitant. This innovative approach toward the quantification of the digital divide leads to numerous new challenges for the research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the sociology of childhood and youth, children have been conceptualized as passive subjects on hold, still in the process of becoming—rather than in an effective state of being. In effect, children have been conceptualized as the subjects rather than the objects of the research process. This influence got carried over to digital divide research. The latest thinking in the field has started to define and understand children and young people as heterogeneous, nonpassive, autonomous, diverse, and versatile agents actively appropriating the Internet in meaningful contexts of their everyday lives. This article seeks to move the discourse forward via four parallel binary logistic regressions that assess diverse and socially mediated opportunities needed to learn basic digital skills from a representative sample of 6,602 primary and secondary students from 350 schools and high schools in Catalonia, Spain. Our research shows that the school appears to be playing a secondary role, as compared with children and young people's social practice in heterogenic contexts of everyday life, not only for Internet training but also for providing opportunities to develop and master basic digital skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors analyze the popular search queries used in Google and Yahoo! over a 24-month period, January 2004-December 2005. They develop and employ a new methodology and metrics to examine and assess the digital divide in information uses, looking at the extent of political searches and their accuracy and variety. The findings indicate that some countries, particularly Germany, Russia, and Ireland, display greater accuracy of search terms, diversity of information uses, and sociopolitical concern. Also, in many English-speaking and Western countries most popular searches were about entertainment, implying a certain gap within these countries between the few who search for economic and political information and the many who do not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few years, information and communication technologies have become an essential part of daily life, affecting education, employment, and leisure, among other activities. Nonetheless, many individuals still reap few or no benefits from these technologies, and there are resilient gaps in their use. Within this larger context, the authors examine the Internet digital divide between people with and without disabilities from a multidimensional approach. Rather than analyzing the gap in terms of “haves” and “have-nots,” a range of Internet-related dimensions—affordability, motivation and attitudes, skills, usage, and others—is taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article a methodology is presented to extract indicators that appropriately measure the information society and the digital divide between countries and the relevant statistics that the majority of countries can collect. With the help of content analysis, the entropy method, and consideration of the diffusion aspects of digitalization, 37 reputable information society and digital divide models are analyzed to indentify “core information and communication technology (ICT) indicators.” To overcome the limitation of the nonexistence of data, the information and the knowledge embedded in information society and digital divide models are employed as proxies for experts' opinions for extracting the core ICT indicators. Comparison of the prior indicators and the proposed ones reveals that the former ignore three important dimensions: e-learning, e-government, and networked world enablers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When researchers study technology diffusion in a global and comparative manner, they often find that economic productivity explains differences in the diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs). But when researchers study technology diffusion in a regional, national, or subnational context, they often find that politics and culture explains different diffusion rates. How do we make use of different kinds of conclusions drawn from different levels of analysis? Just knowing the ways in which wealth explains technology diffusion can obscure the ways in which politics and culture also explain patterns in technology diffusion. In this article, we offer a new perspective on weighting technology diffusion data by economic wealth to set into sharp relief the ways in which other factors—such as politics and culture—influence how well a country metabolizes new technologies. A simple but useful computation is offered, examples are assessed, and implications for public policy, industry, and research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the context of the telecommunications policy environment in the United States during the 1990s, the Department of Commerce's Falling Through the Net reports can be read as a 7-year ideological project to legitimize U.S. government's deregulatory policies. This article analyzes the “digital divide” as rhetorical trope in a neoliberal ideology, which placed responsibility for social and economic success in the emerging global information economy at the level of the individual and not the system, effectively foreclosing on any class-based analyses of the problems associated with the transition from a Keynesian welfare state and industrial economy to a neoliberal and globalized information economy. Unpacking the discursive significance of the “digital divide,” with special focus on public libraries and projects of the Gates Foundation, illuminates how it foreclosed on the possibility of alternative problem definitions by making the problem a technical and administrative one rather than an issue of historic class struggle. The article draws on open-source projects in developing countries to offer an alternate frame for formulating policies for equitable access to information and communication technologies (ICTs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan, the mobile phone has become an increasingly popular medium of accessing the Internet and e-mail, especially among those who may not have affordable access to a computer. The lower startup costs and the easier overall accessibility of mobile phones relative to personal computers suggest that the mobile phone may be a possible alternative for overcoming unequal access to information communication technology in Japan and elsewhere. Using microdata from 2001, we compare and contrast the determinants of mobile versus computer-based Internet in Japan. Our findings show that mobile Internet access, as compared to computer access, is determined less by demographics, socioeconomic status, and technological readiness, suggesting that barriers to Internet access are lower for mobile phones than is the case for computers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines to what extent the Nordic countries, which have been characterized as the world's leading information societies, show similar patterns of Internet use. The data consists of the Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish sections of the European Social Survey 2002 (n = 7539) and 2004 (n = 7211). The similarities and differences in the Internet use are analyzed using sociodemographic and economic information. Temporal changes in the distribution of use between population groups and between countries are also examined. The findings indicate that there are clear disparities in the Internet use patterns, which have not evened out in the early 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the rapid development of broadband Internet access services continues, particularly fiber to the home (FTTH) services, the digital divide between provincial and urban areas is becoming a big social issue in Japan. We classify the issue into two problems: access to high-speed Internet, and service utilization of high-speed Internet access. We focus on the latter problem by quantitatively and qualitatively investigating whether a digital divide problem exists based on Internet service utilization. Consequently, we discover that willingness to pay (WTP) for public services over FTTH is almost identical between provincial and urban areas. Furthermore, territorial digital broadcasting over FTTH accounts for a large part of WTP in provincial areas, while tele-working and tele-education are also important as public services over FTTH in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States an intense debate has taken place between those wishing to minimize the digital divide and others who are skeptical of this view. In regard to the global digital divide, by contrast, although a similar type of complacency can be found, it has not yet been seriously debated. This article, accordingly, hopes to initiate such a discussion. It attacks the notions that information technology can be easily compared with the earlier diffusion of consumer durable goods, that the divide can be made to disappear by redefining the issue, and that the global divide can be analyzed without the help of basic knowledge from fields such as innovation studies, technology and development, and the diffusion of process innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accessible information and communications technologies (ICT) design community has made compelling arguments about the business benefits available to companies who design their products and services to be accessible to people with disabilities. The ICT industry, however, has not embraced accessible design. This article proposes re-branding accessible ICT design as "Anytime, Anywhere, Anyone (AAA) Design." This rebranded approach would shift the focus from one of "pushing" accessible design to one where business would actively "pull" for it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A healthy civil society has long been held as vital to a healthy democracy and there is interest in whether the Internet affects this linkage. This paper explores the relationships between offline and online modes of associational life and also analyzes offline and online interactions with local governments in the US context. Based on our empirical analyses of 1,203 respondents, we show that online participation is not simply an extension of offline participation, but can be distinguished in important ways. First, we find that political and community-oriented engagements cluster separately from more private-regarding engagements. Second, participants of online democratic engagement are not characterized by the SES markers associated with offline democratic engagement who are older, have higher incomes, and have lived in the community longer. Finally, we find significant links between democratic engagement with the political system and involvement with political associations (but not social and community-oriented associations). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government, major information and communications technology (ICT) companies, and educational institutions in the United Kingdom currently claim that ICT skills training offers inclusion into the new economy. We focus on a private–public training initiative and its impact on the socially excluded, specifically lone women parents. Narrative data from four United Kingdom educational sites participating in this computer network engineer training program highlight a systemic paradox: that ICT skills development initiatives designed to support lone women parents are simultaneously working in opposition to broader policy goals such as work–life balance and ironically serve to reproduce the participants' classification as socially excluded. The assumptions underpinning the model of social inclusion driving the ICT skills training course are analyzed critically using the concepts of community of practice, classificatory systems, and marginalization. Our findings suggest that ICT training courses and initiatives should be accompanied by changes in pedagogic practice that accommodate the more wide-ranging needs of those targeted for inclusion, as well as changes in employment settings. We conclude by exploring the implications of this for government policy formation, business vendor qualifications, the design of ICT skills training initiatives, and our understanding of the role of ICT skills in overcoming the digital divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though there has been a proliferation of e-society measures in recent years, analyses of the metrics of the “information society” are still far from responsive to the needs of many stakeholders and continue to suffer from a number of serious limitations. Issues in eight critical areas are briefly presented. They include: definition of the universe to be measured; definition of the objects and phenomena to include in the universe; need to establish measurements based upon solid theories; units of measurements; data sources and collection; methods of analysis and construction of indicators; target audiences; and purpose and utilization of measurements. An organized collective effort, which could provide the impetus for the development of a coherent academic field of study, is called for to address this “grand challenge.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three arguments are raised in this article with regard to the indices used to measure the digital divide. First, I criticize policymakers who rely on simplistic measures of the digital divide, at the expense of a thoughtful analysis of (1) the purpose of the tool, (2) the level of observation, and (3) the method of approaching the data. Second, I argue that networks and associated technologies are not neutral artifacts but are political and social spaces in their structure as well as in their content levels. Accordingly, we need to factor in the context as an important actor in conceptualizing and measuring the digital divide. Third, two general types of indices are used for the measurement of the digital divide(s): focused monotopical indices and comprehensive indices. Monotopical indices are more widely available, while comprehensive ones are rare. I argue that policymakers need to promote comprehensive indices over monotopical indices. Finally, I present a conceptual definition of the digital divide and a framework for developing a comprehensive index to measure it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term “digital divide” has been used for almost a decade and typically relates to sociodemographic differences in the use of information and communication technology. However, the corresponding measurement is still relatively imprecise. Very often it is simply reduced to comparisons of Internet penetration rates. This article extends the measurements above the usual bivariate comparisons. Within this context, three essential approaches are presented and critically evaluated. First, loglinear modeling is used to address the interactions among the factors affecting the digital divide. Second, compound measures (i.e., the Digital Divide Index) that integrate a number of variables into a single indicator are discussed. Third, time-distance methodology is applied to analyze changes in the digital divide. The article argues that these approaches often yield entirely different conclusions compared to simple bivariate analysis. The examples are presented as a general warning against an oversimplified methodological approach to digital divide studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New media studies are now benefiting from a burgeoning of empirical studies and theoretical analyses from diverse academic disciplines seeking to locate new media, especially the Internet, within longstanding traditions of social science research. By reviewing and reflecting upon findings from UK Children Go Online, a multimethod research project examining the role of the Internet in children's and young people's everyday lives, the present article takes the opportunity to draw out some general conclusions, and associated puzzles, to guide future research. These contribute toward an emerging framework for understanding questions regarding new media access, use, and consequences within the social, cultural, and political parameters of young people's lives. A range of research findings are discussed that illuminate the shifting balance of opportunities and risks posed by the Internet for children, youth, and the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much time and money has been committed by governments, private business, and the third sector over the last 5 years in establishing opportunities for underserved populations to gain access to new forms of information and communication technologies, in an effort to overcome the so-called “digital divide.” This article traces the efforts that have been made to establish a networked community at a single high-rise public housing estate in inner Melbourne, Australia, and considers some of the potential opportunities for and barriers to ensuring the continuity of the network, which is large, complex, costly, and potentially fragile, into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]