Digital Divide

According to the Australian Parliament the definition of Digital Divide is:

‘The lack of access to information and communications technologies by segments of the community. The digital divide is a generic term used to describe this lack of access due to linguistic, economic, educational, social and geographic reasons.’ – http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/

Feenberg first states that the internet is not a fully developed technology and that it was only ARPANET that would fund the project in the start as it was lavish and speculative. The outcome was not guaranteed and no-one could predict what the technology would bring. Ironically, this issue of being unfunded and no-one would invest is exactly what the people affected by the Digital Divide have to deal with. The government struggle to invest money into the lower classes as the output that they get from them is low.

In the paper, there are a few issues which Feenberg describes, in his conclusion he lists a few example of areas which the internet has played a vital role. When considering the digital divide in medical terms you can clearly see the benefit, especially for those seeking medical advice but can afford the fees. This is not usually the case in the UK but if there is a problem one can Google a query and find at least a good estimation if not the answer they were looking for. Sites like Wikipedia provide a vast amount of information which can be read by anyone, there are no registration fees or limits to the amount of information available. This in turn provides a cheaper alternative for those seeking advice. Social communities have been set up. From experience migraine sufferers have their own space where they talk about remedies and what works for them as well as other options which they might not have heard of before.

Music sharing has had an incredible rise since the start of the decade. Feenberg writes that “between an $18 album with one good song and a free or 99 cent download of that same song, there is no competition.” In my opinion this is very true, everyone has bought an album before where only half if not less is worth listening to. Some term these poorer tracks as filler tracks, just to make up for the rest of the album. iTunes is at the top of this unsteady market, it tackles the money issue as well as provide users with a cheaper alternative. Some listeners enjoy the thought of physically holding and album where as others are just interested in listening to it. Ultimately it comes down to buying something. With the music market spanning thousands of different artists it would be almost impossible to buy every album that you liked, some people just cannot justify it. Now with the availability of the sites like Rapidshare and of course Napster which really kicked off this shift in the music industry, it has been at the top of the record labels agenda to combat music piracy.

The list that Feenberg has listed is all about money or the lack of in some cases. The digital divide was first used by the U.S. administration and U.S. journalists to describe the social gap between those involved with technology, particularly between children and their schools. Speaking of a mobile computer lab in a truck, Al Gore said, “It’s rolling into communities, connecting schools in our poorest neighborhoods and paving over the digital divide.” In the paper it is clear that people were very skeptical in using the internet for any sort of education. With the internet being so vast no-one could predict how deep it would integrate into everyone’s lives. School computer access was always going to be an issue. Rich schools were much more likely to provide their students with internet access so ultimately even though the internet is a free resource but the equipment needed to have the internet was not. There are a few projects which try to tackle the global digital divide where poverty is refine in poor underdeveloped countries. However, One laptop per child and 50×15 rely heavily on open source software. The projects were developed to bridge the gap in the digital divide and also a term called the knowledge divide. The Knowledge Divide is where a lack of technology causes the lack of useful information and knowledge.

David Noble wrote:
“Visions of democratization and popular empowerment via the net are dangerous delusions; whatever the gains, they are overwhelmingly overshadowed and more than nullified by the losses. As the computer screens brighten with promise for the few, the light at the end of the tunnel grows dimmer for the many.” (Noble, consulted Nov. 11, 2006: 12).
I think Noble was making the point that where there are profits there will equally be losses, and in most cases where someone gains someone else losses out. Feenberg also points out that:
“some argue that the digital divide excludes the poor from participation while enhancing the well to-do people. others complain that the internet people are able to segregate themselves and other argue that the internet is so thoroughly colonized by business that it is little more that an electronic mall. without face-to-face contact, it is said, people cannot take each other seriously enough to form a community.”