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Title page

Introduction

1.Defining Digital Divide

2.Education and Digital Divide

3.Golobal Digital Divide

4.Digital Divide and political impacts

5.Conclusions

Appendix

List of Reference





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Defining Digital Divide

 

Generally defining, Digital Divide refers to the gap between the people who have internet and technology access and those who have not, therefore creating information and knowledge gaps. However, as Couldry described in the text book "Web Studies", the detailed definitions of digital divide becomes much more complex and various. (Couldry 185) The unequal balance between people who have access to the information technology and those who do not have ultimately creates imbalanced assets to participate as "digital citizen" in today's digital society. The emergence of computers and internet made possible of rapid "increased flows of information" that became one of important resources of society. Therefore, the lack of knowledge created by unequal access by some members of society to information and communication technology became critical problem including economic, global, political and/or social gaps. According to Pippa Norris, the political scientist, the "digital divide" typically can be broken into two categories which are "global divide" and "social divide". The global divide refers to the different rates of telecommunication usage and information capacity exist between "developed" and "developing" nations; and the social divide suggests the class division presented by number of Internet-based resources and the computer access inside one nation that causes social distinction among citizens. (Couldry 188)