In the year 2020 both the concept of and the research into the digital divide will be twenty-five years old. In 1995 the term ‘digital divide’ was first used in a number of newspapers in the United States. It was backed by data in the report Falling through the Net, published by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which talked about ‘haves and have nots’ (NTIA 1995). Soon the concept spread to Europe and the rest of the world, and by the millennium both the idea and the problematic of the digital divide were firmly established on the societal and scholarly agenda.
But what does the concept actually mean? It has produced so many definitions, controversies and misunderstandings that several people were in favour of discarding it after a few years (Compaine 2001; Gunkel 2003). The most common definition runs as follows: a division between people who have access and use of digital media and those who do not. The term ‘access’ was emphasized in the first years of discourse, though later the word ‘use’ was highlighted.
A common synonym for digital media is the general term ‘information and communication technology’. Access can refer to its devices, connections or applications. The first device to be accessed was a stand-alone computer or a PC, to be followed by a series of digital media, both mobile (mobile phones, laptops, tablets and smartphones) and digitized analogue media (television, radio, cameras and game devices). Connections mentioned were the Internet, mobile telephony and digital broadcasting, with either narrowor broadcasting capacities. Finally, the applications of most interest were e-mail, search engines, e-commerce, e-banking and social-networking sites.
Before the concept of the digital divide, other terms were used, mostly related to the concepts of the information society and (in)equality: information inequality (Schiller 1981, 1996), knowledge gap (Tichenor et al. 1970) and participation in the information society (Lyon 1988). Access and use became linked to digital skills or literacy, motivation (‘want-nots’) and such outcomes as a democratic divide and an economic opportunity divide (Mossberger et al. 2003).
Table 1.1. Definitions of the digital divide
| Type | Definition |
| General | A division between people who have access to and use of digital media and those who do not |
| Specific |
|
| connects | |
|
|
| Process | Divisions in the access to and use of four phases in the adoption of digital media: motivation, physical access, digital skills and usage |
In this book I will offer my own framework of four phases of access and use of digital media in order to understand better the concept of the digital divide: motivation, physical access, skills and usage. A descriptive framework is offered by Hilbert (2011a: 19), who defines the digital divide by answering four specific questions (see table 1.1).
We will see that the focus of digital divide research is, first, on individuals and, second, on divisions between countries or within countries (urban and rural). There has also been attention paid to the individual demographics and characteristics of countries (rich and poor or developed or developing). The short history of the discourse below shows that the emphasis on ‘how’ runs from access to skills and usage. Finally, the technology in question has moved from PCs and dial-up or narrowcast Internet to hand-held computers, mobile devices and broadband Internet.
The term ‘digital divide’ is a metaphor. A metaphor is a vivid figure of speech applying a word or phrase to something to which it is not literally applicable. In English, a divide is both a point or a line of division – a specific term indicating a geographical dividing line, such as a watershed. In other languages, digital divide is also defined in metaphorical terms, such as an opening (brecha in Spanish), a gorge (Kluft in German) or a fracture (fracture numérique in French). Thus the digital divide also indicates a social split between people in a divided society. Here the distinction inclusion in or exclusion from society is relevant.
The metaphor has also caused a number of misconceptions. The first misunderstanding is that the digital divide is a simple division between two clearly separated social categories. However, because in contemporary societies we exhibit an increasingly multifaceted social, economic and cultural variation, it is more helpful to see it as a range of positions extending across whole populations – from people having no access and use at all to those with full access and using several applications every day. If any delineation is required, a tripartite society might be a better definition than a two-tiered one. At one extreme we perceive an information elite and at the other the digitally illiterate or the fully excluded. In between are the majority of the population, having access in one way or another and using digital technology to a certain extent (see van Dijk [1999] 2012, 2000).
The second misconception is that this gap cannot be closed and that it will lead to structural or persisting inequality. It has been shown that this is not the case in terms of physical access to digital technology – a bridge that has been crossed in the developed countries. Bridging different skills and usage opportunities might be more difficult. However, in this book I will show that these differences can also be mitigated by sensible policies of governments, businesses, educational institutions, and consumers or citizens.
A third misconception is the assumption that the digital divide is about absolute inequality, as it is often framed in the concepts ‘inclusion’ in and ‘exclusion’ from society. In fact, all types of access to digital technology discussed in this book are relative distinctions. As different people have different degrees of motivation, physical access, skills and usage opportunities leading to different outcomes, as well as different levels of support, a relational and network view of inequality will be discussed.
A fourth danger of the metaphor is that it suggests a single digital divide. In fact the actual state of digital inequality is much more complex (van Dijk and Hacker 2003) and is linked to existing social, economic and cultural divisions in society.
Finally, the term ‘digital’ suggests that the digital divide is a technical issue when, in fact, it is more of a social problem. Technical properties of digital media are important for access and use – they can be complicated or relatively simple – but the causes and effects of (in) equality are social. The digital divide is not brought to an end when everybody owns and commands the technology concerned. In this book I argue that the digital divide is here to stay even when all such problems are overcome.
Some people question whether the phenomenon of the digital divide is new or special. Society has seen the introduction of many problematical technologies. How is the introduction of digital media different from that of compulsory reading and writing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, for example? This question can be answered from several perspectives. We might look to the innovation, the acceptance and the development of new technology by individuals and societies. The phenomenon can also be framed in terms of (in)equality, when some people have more opportunities to adopt and use new technology than others. A third perspective is the effect of the introduction of this technology for people and society in terms of participation (see table 1.2): in which respects are people more or less included in or excluded from society?
In terms of innovation, acceptance and development, information and communication technology created after the Second World War was introduced relatively speedily, in about a generation. It was even called a ‘digital revolution’. The majority of the population took to particular media and applications pretty quickly, first of all in the developed countries. The World Wide Web, created in 1993, was already in use in the vast majority of these countries after fifteen years. The uptake of social media, starting in 2004, showed the fastest adoption rate of any mass medium in history. About 2 billion people in the world became Facebook users in only ten to twelve years. The ‘digital revolution’ happened so fast that it is not surprising that large numbers of people, especially in the developing countries, lagged behind and so led to a digital divide.
The digital divide is framed primarily in terms of (in)equality. The question is whether it is special in this respect in comparison with former technologies or media. This depends on the aspect of (in)equality we are considering: as Amartya Sen asked, ‘Equality of what?’ (Sen 1992: ix). Is it (in)equality of opportunities, life chances, freedoms, capital, resources, positions, capabilities, skills? Unfortunately, the answer is not made clear in most books and articles about the digital divide. In this book I will refer to all of these aspects or expressions of (in)equality. A special characteristic of the digital divide in terms of (in)equality is that, more than was the case with former technologies, it touches every imaginable part of society. The main reason is that digital media are used in all types of activities in daily life, while for example reading books or newspapers and watching television are only mental activities (see chapter 6).
Table 1.2. Perspectives on the digital divide
| Perspective | Description |
| Innovation | Adoption or not of information and communication technology for progress or development |
| (In)equality | More or fewer opportunities to adopt and use information and communication technology |
| Participation in society | Inclusion in or exclusion from society by adopting and using information and communication technology |
One of the main aspects of the digital divide is inequality of capabilities or skills. This is often linked to the concept of ‘literacy’. We often read about a comparison between digital and traditional literacy. Is digital literacy different from the traditional literacy of reading and writing? There are many similarities between the two, but there also are differences in skills required (van Dijk and van Deursen 2014; van Deursen and van Dijk 2016). On the one hand, digital media simplify the finding of information – for example, using a search engine would seem to be easier than consulting a library catalogue or index cards. On the other hand, digital media are also more complicated: they require new and special skills in the use of search engines.
The third perspective of the digital divide is in terms of participation – whether individuals are included in or excluded from society in such domains as work, education, the market, community, citizenship, politics and culture. Is the access to and use of digital media more important for participation in these domains than the access to and use of print media, television, radio and the telephone? My answer in this book is that they are even more important. ICTs are general-purpose technologies. While older technologies are important for knowledge, entertainment or communication, digital media are used for every act, purpose or need in society. Increasingly, access to and use of digital media is needed to participate as a worker, entrepreneur, student, consumer or citizen, or in any other role in contemporary society. In this respect the digital divide is special too.
Nevertheless, it has to be demonstrated that people can no longer play any other role in contemporary society without using digital technology. In many ways, printed media, television, radio and the telephone are still working in apparently satisfactory ways. However, in this book we will see that, increasingly, access to and use of digital media is needed at least to enjoy all benefits in society. In most developed countries governments expect that citizens have an e-mail address and access to the Internet. More and more jobs require digital skills at a particular level. You cannot take advantage of education without being able to use a computer and the Internet. Without using social-networking sites people may lose friends or contacts and miss invitations for parties and the like. A lack of fast digital connections may lead to people finding that concerts and festivals are sold out. So the digital divide is increasingly a problem for society. Here again the perspective is threefold (see table 1.3).
Table 1.3. Perspectives of the digital divide as a problem
| Perspective | Problem |
| Innovation and economic growth | Lack of innovation, development and economic growth of a country |
| Inequality and exclusion | Economic, social and cultural inequality and exclusion of people from society |
| Security | People without access are a security risk for society because they cannot be kept under surveillance by governments and by businesses. |
International institutions such as the UN, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the OECD and the World Bank frame the digital divide primarily as a socio-economic indicator for growth and development. Their reports reveal strong correlations between the number of Internet connections and ICT use in a country and its rate of development, innovation and economic growth (see a summary in the report of the World Bank (2016), with its telling title Digital Dividends). From this perspective, governments and international economic bodies and technical institutions (such as the ITU) see the digital divide primarily as a matter of economic policy and international competition. In developed countries, the digital divide limits the innovative capacity of an economy because a proportion of the population cannot keep up. In developing countries, it impedes economic growth and the capacity to keep pace with the developed countries.
The second perspective, which prevails in social and media or communication science, is a social one: (in)equality and inclusion in or exclusion from society. Here the main question is whether the digital divide is a byproduct of old inequalities or whether it is a new inequality. This is also one of the most important questions I ask in this book. Does the digital divide intensify existing inequalities or does it cause new ones? It is often claimed that inequality changes in the context of the information or network society (Schiller 1996; Castells 1996; van Dijk, [1991] 2001, [1999] 2012). Equality and inclusion are important norms in any social and liberal democracy and in the perspective of equal global development. This perspective leads to the introduction of social, cultural and educational policies by governments and NGOs.
A third perspective is often ignored: the importance of the digital divide for security in society. However, as early as the first year in which the digital divide was discussed, an appeal was published for so-called universal access for all Americans to e-mail (Anderson et al. 1995). The argument was that those without e-mail access would become a security liability: the government should support e-mail access for all citizens not only to communicate with them but also to keep an eye on them. After more than twenty years of massive government and police surveillance of the Internet and other digital connections, this appeal now seems more urgent than ever. For example, a terrorist who uses only secret face-to-face conspiracy and old technologies such as bombs, trucks, knives and guns to kill people is a nightmare for the security organizations. This third perspective is now part of every security policy. Better a connection for all than no connection at all.
This brief history looks at the research or scholarly perspective of the digital divide and the societal perspective of media, politics and policy. Presumably, the Los Angeles Times journalists Webber and Harmon coined the term in their article of 29 July 1995 describing the social division between those who were involved in information technology and those who were not (Gunkel 2003: 501). A short time afterwards, the NTIA (part of the American Department of Commerce) popularized the term and supported it with census data, but at that time it used only the terms ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. The term spread both in the media and in American politics.
In 2001 the first, frequently cited scientific book about the digital divide appeared: Pippa Norris (2001) distinguished a global divide (industrialized and developing countries), a social divide (access of rich and poor individuals in each nation) and a democratic divide (those who do and those who do not use Internet resources for community engagement). Although her theory was much broader, she treated the concept of the digital divide primarily in terms of physical access, which means having a computer and an Internet connection. Norris framed the divide with reference to the diffusion of innovations theory. This theory, best known in the work of Everett Rogers ([1962] 2003), defines a number of groups who take up new technologies (innovators, early adopters, early and late majority people, and laggards) and the evolution of their endorsement in an S-curve.
This first phase of discourse and research was marked by a very rapid uptake of computer possession and Internet connections among the general population, first of all in the United States. Espousal was first by the innovators (the first 2.5 per cent) and the early adopters (from 13.5 per cent of the population), and then by the early majority (between 34 and 50 per cent). After 1993 the graphical interface of the World Wide Web considerably increased the popularity of the Internet. In 1995 less than 30 per cent of Americans owned a computer and less than 20 per cent a modem, while less than 10 per cent were permanently online among others using e-mail (NTIA 1998). However, in 2001 the figure was 56 per cent for computers and 50 per cent for the Internet (NTIA 2002) and several European countries had already passed the US in take-up (NTIA 2002).
Between 1995 and 2004 the gap in the adoption of computers and Internet connections between people with higher education, income or employment, the young, and those of the majority ethnicity in a country were increasing in comparison with people with low education, income or employment, seniors and ethnic minorities (van Dijk 2005). The first nationwide representative surveys to report this was one by Katz and Rice (2002), covering surveys from 1997 through 2001, and those published by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (Horrigan 2000; Lenhart 2000; Spooner and Rainie 2000).
In the second part of the 1990s the mood concerning the potential of the Internet and ICTs in general was very positive and optimistic. Approaching the millennium, even an Internet hype was observed. According to policy-makers, every citizen, worker and consumer should have access to the opportunities of the Internet, and this seemed to be confirmed by the fast uptake. Soon critics pronounced that the digital divide was a myth (Brady 2000; Compaine 2001), non-existent (Thierer 2000) or rubbish (Crabtree 2001). The problem could be solved by the market offering ever cheaper and simpler computers and connections. Via the ‘trickle-down principle’, affluent first users would pay for cheaper products to be purchased later by users with lower income. Just as with other mass media, such as radio, television, video players and telephones, those in higher social classes would merely adopt computers and the Internet a bit earlier than others. American government agencies reached the conclusion that the digital divide was closing naturally. While the titles of the first reports of the NTIA contained references to people as ‘have nots’ and ‘falling through the net’, or were trying to define ‘the digital divide’ (NTIA 1995, 1998, 1999), around the election of George W. Bush as president the titles suddenly included words such as ‘toward digital inclusion’ (NTIA 2000) and ‘a nation online’ (NTIA 2002). At the start of the Bush administration all funds and initiatives supporting access created in the Clinton years were cancelled and the NTIA budget was severely cut. According to Hammond, the boss of the NTIA in 2000, the term ‘digital divide’ sounded too divisive. Instead, he preferred to talk about ‘digital inclusion’ (Rappoport et al. 2009). So, five years after its appearance, the digital divide was officially buried.
Yet, this was not the conclusion of scholarly debate and research into the digital divide; the number of publications reached a climax between the years 2000 and 2005 (Berrío Zapata and Sant’Ana 2015: 6). At that time research and debate were dominated by economists, telecommunications researchers and government or business policy-makers, almost exclusively American. The attitude of these researchers and policy-makers was technical and deterministic: the diffusion of this strong new technology, full of opportunities, was inevitable and would lead to near universal dissemination when market forces were enacted.
In the following period, first scholars and then policy-makers moved beyond the parameter of physical access. Social scientists indeed first used such expressions as ‘beyond the digital divide’ (Mossberger et al. 2003), ‘rethinking the digital divide’ (Warschauer 2003), ‘reconceptualizing the digital divide’ (Selwyn 2004) and ‘the digital divide as a complex and dynamic phenomenon’ (van Dijk and Hacker 2003). Paul Attewell (2001) coined the terms ‘first-’ and ‘second-level divide’, the latter referring to computer use and literacy. A year later this term was made popular by Eszter Hargittai (2002), who primarily raised issues of unequal online skills. The core idea and critique of the shift was that having physical access was useless without the requisite skills, knowledge and support for effective use and that the digital divide problem was not first and foremost technological but social, economic, cultural and political (Selwyn 2004).
This period was marked by an even faster uptake of Internet connections and purchase of computers, which became smaller, faster and cheaper every year. While in 2004 less than 15 per cent of the world’s population used the Internet, in 2014 that figure was already approaching 45 per cent (World Bank 2016). During this decade the early majority of the potential population in the developed countries using the Internet turned into a late majority, in some countries reaching the 90 per cent mark. The gap in computer and Internet access among people in the developed countries with different education, income, employment or social status, which had previously been widening (van Dijk 2005), was turned upside down. Now it was those with low education and income, together with seniors and females, who were adopting the technology faster than the others.
The popularity of the Internet grew considerably with the appearance of social media around the year 2004 and the arrival of mobile web access with powerful phones (3G), leading to a user experience that was altogether different. In the early 1990s the Internet was seen as a foreign and intimidating space that required technical expertise and digital competencies (Oggolder 2015). Now it became part of daily life for more than 70 per cent of the population in the developed countries. Using e-commerce, e-banking, e-government and social-networking sites became normal daily activities. In 2012 van Dijk and van Deursen (2014b) observed that, in the Netherlands, people with low education spent more leisure time on the Internet than those with higher education.
When, between 2010 and 2015, in a growing number of technologically advanced countries, home Internet access exceeded 90 per cent or more, often with broadband capacities, policy-makers in government and business tended to play down the problem of the digital divide. Simultaneously, faster connections and all kinds of terminals apparently made use of the Internet extremely easy: laptops, tablets, smartphones and touchscreens were everywhere. The digital divide was buried for the second time. The majority of people were using the web to find simple information and for messages, shopping, every kind of service and social networking. ‘Even a two-year-old child can manage a tablet’ was a popular expression at that time. In the US, only broadband diffusion was left as a problem for the government to solve, starting in the Obama years after 2008.
That the digital divide was dead was not the conclusion of most researchers and policy-makers pretending to have insight and a vision of the future. It was certainly not the conclusion of policy-makers and researchers at that time in the developing countries, where physical access and Internet use reached (far) less than 50 per cent of the population. In both developed and developing countries, many government and educational authorities realized that there was more than physical access to be considered. It became clearer that all those new users needed skills and useful applications to support the economy, society and culture. Unfortunately, policy directions to reinforce this were exploratory, occasional and not very effective (see chapter 9).
So it is not surprising that, following the fast adoption and popularization of the Internet, at least in the developed countries, the biggest concern for digital divide research became the skills of all those new users. The scope of research became considerably broader, to include the new issues of opportunity and inequality. The key term ‘digital divide’ was used less and less in publishing after 2004 (Berrío Zapata and Sant’Ana 2015). It seemed that between the early 2000s and 2009 the interest in such research was diminishing (Reisdorf et al. 2017: 108). In fact, the key words were changing, to ‘Internet use’, ‘social media use’, ‘mobile use’, ‘digital or information literacy’, ‘digital skills or competencies’, and others related to unequal opportunities and applications.
Between 2004 and 2012, new conceptual frameworks and operational definitions were created for digital literacy and typologies of Internet use or applications. Discussions started concerning what the differences might be between traditional and digital literacy and whether ‘literacy’ or ‘skills and competencies’ was the more appropriate term to use. Together with creating new conceptual frameworks, some researchers tested the literacies, skills or competencies in laboratories, field experiments and surveys (Hargittai 2002; Bunz 2004, 2009; van Deursen 2010).
The second issue of primary intention in this phase of digital divide research was Internet use and user groups. Several classifications were created, some based traditionally on general social-psychological gratifications or needs (Flanagin and Metzger 2001; LaRose and Eastin 2004), others on special Internet activities (Livingstone and Helsper 2007; Brandtzæg 2010; Kalmus et al. 2011; van Deursen and van Dijk 2014a, 2014b). These were studied in several wide-scale surveys of Internet use internationally.
A number of investigators observed that a usage gap was unfolding similar to the so-called knowledge gap that occurred in the 1970s with the mass media. This was seen as a gap between people using primarily information, education and career-oriented Internet applications and those using mainly entertainment and simple commercial and communication applications (Bonfadelli 2002; Madden 2003; van Dijk and Hacker 2003; van Deursen and van Dijk 2014a; Zillien and Hargittai 2009).
From 2004 onwards, most research was dedicated to differences and inequalities among computer and Internet users. Most popular were projects about the unequal use of a series of new media and applications perceived as hypes: blogs, chat or messaging boxes, social media, mobile phones and wearables. Studies were still predominantly American, though there were European scholars (mainly in the UK, the Netherlands and Spain). In Latin America, a number of Brazilian, Chilean and Mexican authors were active (see Berrío Zapata and Sant’Ana 2015 for the international distribution) while, in Asia, South Korea, Singapore and, more recently, China have been prominent in this research, showing that work in this area has become global.
While the focus of research on skills and usage continues today, in the last five years a new perspective has appeared. As the process of diffusion of computers and the Internet seems to be reaching saturation point, at least in the developed countries, some investigators and policy-makers wonder what its effect has been on people, organizations and societies. What are the outcomes (neutral) or benefits (normative) of computer and Internet access and use? Again, some individuals ask whether the digital divide has finally closed.
In 2010, José Robles Morales, Cristóbal Torres Albero and Óscar Molina coined the term ‘third-level digital divide’ (in Spanish). Two years later Robles and Torres Albero (2012) again suggested the term as a logical step after their survey of access and use of the Internet in Spain, although they did not account for outcomes in their study. They hypothesized that people without access and the necessary skills would not benefit from a growing number of online services that did not have offline equivalents, and they were afraid that digital inequality would reinforce classical social inequalities. In 2011, Wei and his colleagues from Singapore not only used the term but also demonstrated the third-level divide in a local experiment. They observed the effects of access (first level) and capabilities or skills (second level) on the self-efficacy and learning outcomes of 4,000 students.
Van Deursen and van Dijk demonstrated a much broader focus of outcomes or benefits of Internet use in two nationwide representative surveys in the Netherlands. The first was in the economic domain. In the spring of 2012 they reported on productivity loss among the Dutch workforce on account of a lack of digital skills (estimated at about 4 per cent of working time) and malfunctioning digital technology (another 4 per cent loss). See van Deursen and van Dijk (2014b). In the autumn of that year their representative survey of the Dutch population contained a long list of questions concerning the potential benefits of using the Internet on all domains, economic, social, political, cultural, educational and personal development. It showed that people with higher education and jobs and the young generations were benefiting much more from the Internet than those with low education or jobs and the elderly. Examples of such benefits were lower prices for products, greater chances of securing a job or finding a party to vote for, better education opportunities, more and better health information and treatment, opportunities to acquire new friends, and even more chance of forming romantic relationships (see van Deursen and van Dijk 2012). At that time only the positive outcomes of Internet use were taken into account.
In 2015, Helsper, van Deursen and Eynon published a comparison of British and Dutch survey data, called Tangible Outcomes of Internet Use, which observed and conceptualized Internet outcomes in four fields of resources: economic, cultural, social and individual well-being. Two years later Ragnedda (2017) offered a theory focusing on the third-level digital divide, dealing with the question of whether the outcomes simply extend traditional forms of inequality or whether they also include new forms of social exclusion.
In the last five years of this recent phase of research, there has been universal access to the Internet and their terminal devices in the most technologically advanced developed countries. The so-called laggards and the digitally excluded now comprise less than 10 per cent of the population, whereas in other developed countries this figure is 20 per cent to one-third of the population. However, in the developing countries it is variously between 50 and 90 per cent of the population – far from universal access (ITU 2017).
As, in the developed countries, all parts of the population are using the Internet daily and digital media in every activity – work education, leisure, social networking, commerce and services – the effects or outcomes of these activities register with both researchers and policy-makers. The positive and negative effects of Internet and digital media use are observed and discussed in all media. Policy-makers are no longer focusing only on physical access or digital skills and useful applications of the Internet. The 2016 World Bank Digital Dividends report is about the many, mostly positive, effects of Internet use in several domains of society. The outcomes of Internet use are also outlined in the Inclusive Internet Index of the Economist Intelligence Unit (2019). This policy think tank concludes that ‘an inclusive Internet is not just accessible and affordable to all. It is also relevant to all, allowing usage that enables positive social and economic outcomes at individual and group level.’ The indicators for assessing countries in this index were not only availability and affordability but also relevance and readiness to use the Internet.
The focus on outcomes of the third-level digital divide is also the main focus of this book. The emphasis in my earlier general book was the second-level digital divide, highlighting digital skills and inequalities of use (van Dijk 2005). The main questions I want to answer here are 1) does digital inequality or the digital divide reduce or reinforce existing, traditional inequalities?, and 2) does the digital divide create new, previously unknown, social inequalities? These questions will be highlighted in the last part of the book. In the first part I shall deal with the causes of the outcomes of Internet and digital media: motivation for or attitudes towards using digital media, physical conditions of access, digital skills and usage patterns.
Chapter 2 is about the empirical investigations and the theories created concerning the digital divide in almost twenty-five years of research. Has the body of research grown or diminished in these years? Have there been times of rising and declining interest? Was the research primarily quantitative or qualitative? What were the main methods of data collection? Who were the most important subjects of research and which were the most important countries? Which were the most important empirical questions in the first-, second- and third-level phases of digital divide research? The second part of this chapter discusses the theories about the digital divide offered so far. What is the nature of these theories? Are they specifications of existing general theories or new theories focusing only on the digital divide? Have these theories been validated and tested in empirical research?
Chapters 3 to 6 are the core of this book. They describe and explain four phases of access or adoption of digital media: a) motivation or attitude towards gaining access, b) actually obtaining physical access, c) acquiring digital skills or literacy, and d) actual use of these media. These phases are in fact parts of my own theoretical framework proposed many years ago (van Dijk 2005), but they can still be used as neutral distinctions because they follow the focus of the three levels of digital divide research. I have no problem in describing different approaches than my own or research results of other investigators.
In chapter 3 the primary motivations for gaining access are discussed. In general, such motivations, and positive attitudes towards the use of digital technology, have increased considerably in the last twenty-five years. However, even when universal access is in sight in the most technologically advanced developed countries, motivations and attitudes remain important where unequal use is involved. Some people are much more motivated than others to purchase new hardware and software, to learn digital skills, and to use all kinds of Internet applications every day. We have in society not only have-nots but also want-nots. Who are they? This chapter contains mostly psychological research.
Chapter 4 summarizes the main research about physical access. This is the ‘classical’ and best-known part of digital divide research. It is primarily economic, technological and sociological. Here familiar schemes of diffusion of innovation theory are examined, such as the adoption curves of current and future users. What is the current situation of computer possession and Internet connection rates in developing and developed countries? Does the physical access gap disappear when everybody has a computer and an Internet connection?
In chapter 5 the discussion turns to research into digital skills or literacies. I will first list several conceptual frameworks invented for the study of digital skills, competencies, literacies, so-called twenty-first-century skills and others. Then I will list all the relevant causes and consequences of the digital skills divide according to those frameworks. Who has the best skills and to what level? Are the more highly educated and young people better than others, as presumed in public opinion?
Chapter 6 is about divides in the use of the Internet and other digital media. The most important typologies of users and applications on (mainly) the Internet will be enumerated. Concerning unequal use, we look principally at the frequency and diversity of applications. We will see that all known social differences in society are reflected in the use of the Internet and other digital media. However, does this use only reflect or also reinforce usage patterns? The knowledge gap thesis of the 1970s assumed that the use of the traditional mass media leads to more information for people with higher educational attainment and more entertainment experience for those with lower educational attainment. Is a similar gap also growing on the Internet?
Chapter 7 is about the positive and negative outcomes of access and use of the Internet and other digital media. Who benefits most from access and usage: people with higher education and income, people in professional jobs, young people in general? Or are all categories of the population benefiting equally? Who is better able to cope with such negative outcomes as excessive use, cybercrime or abuse, and loss of security or privacy?
Chapter 8 concerns the relation between digital and social inequality. This chapter contains the main messages of the book. Here again the principal question is whether digital inequality is merely a reflection of social inequality or whether it might lead to more or less inequality in general. The second question is whether the use of digital technology will reduce or reinforce existing inequalities. When the Internet and other digital media first appeared, people thought that inequality of information and media use would be reduced. Once people obtained access and acquired a minimum of usage skills, information would be relatively easy to find everywhere (online) and at any time. The Internet was cheap or even free to use, as costs were paid via advertising.
In the last twenty years this optimistic expectation began to fade. It was observed that social, economic and cultural inequality was rising in large parts of the world. The entire societal context is significant for the evolution of the digital divide. This chapter focuses, first, on the context of those other inequalities that existed before the advent of the Internet and, second, on new types of inequality in the context of the information society and the network society.
The final chapter of this book is about policy perspectives to solve the problem of the digital divide. But can the digital divide be closed completely, or can it only be mitigated? In this chapter several policy measures in all domains of society will be discussed that at least ameliorate the problem. They are listed with reference to the four phases of access discussed in chapters 3 to 6 along the main social domains: work, education, business, leisure, citizenship and culture. I will address both governments and the business world (producers, users and designers of digital technology), together with educators, politicians, community or civilian organizations and users themselves.