Lecture about Digital Divide in regards to globalization

1. Digital Divides, Digital
Commons
March 26, 2012
Week 12

2. Digital Divide
The discrepancy between people who have
access to and the resources to use new
information and communication tools, such
as the Internet, and people who do not
have the resources and access to the
technology.
AND ...
The discrepancy between those who have
the skills, knowledge and abilities to use
the technologies and those who do not.

3. Dimensions of Social Exclusion
• The processes and structures through which
individuals and groups are detached from, and
unable to fully participate in, the
organizations and resources that make up
society.
• A combination of physical and ideological
effects, linked to economic exclusion.
• Disproportionate negative impacts on groups
marginalized or disadvantaged (i.e., by gender,
racialization, citizenship, class)

4. Access criteria:
A North-South Divide
Infrastructure
Affordability
Knowledge
(adult literacy and education levels)
Quality (speed, bandwidth)
Usage (of internet)

5. Structural
Exclusions:
Global North
Class
http://www.youtube.com/wa
Geography tch?v=fCIB_vXUptY
Race United States, 2008

6. Canada, New Zealand, Australia

7. Digital Commons
The creation, design and use of technologies for the
purpose of open, shared and widespread use and
circulation of technology.
Associated with the ideal of democracy and
accessibility.
Examples (of expanding global commons):
• Transnational networks (communities, social movements from
below)
• Non-corporate, open-source initiatives
• Use of corporate technologies (Facebook, youtube)
• Free communication devices (skype)
• Expanding public sector access to technologies (e.g., public
library systems)
• Online media (al Jazeera, Democracy now)

8. Globalization from Above/Below
Technology as neither inherently democratic
nor inherently exclusionary.
Factors that influence outcome (i.e.,
digital divide/digital commons balance):
• Entrenched unequal power relations
• Structural, historical inequalities
• Unequal property ownership
• Globalization hype (e.g., “global village”)