The Digital Divide

The Internet and Social Inequality in International Perspective

Massimo Ragnedda, Glenn W. Muschert, Massimo Ragnedda, Glenn W. Muschert

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135088354
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery
• Index: Computer Science

This book provides an in-depth comparative analysis of inequality and the stratification of the digital sphere.

Grounded in classical sociological theories of inequality, as well as empirical evidence, this book defines 'the digital divide' as the unequal access and utility of internet communications technologies and explores how it has the potential to replicate existing social inequalities, as well as create new forms of stratification. The Digital Divide examines how various demographic and socio-economic factors including income, education, age and gender, as well as infrastructure, products and services affect how the internet is used and accessed. Comprised of six parts, the first section examines theories of the digital divide, and then looks in turn at:

• Highly developed nations and regions (including the USA, the EU and Japan);
• Emerging large powers (Brazil, China, India, Russia);
• Eastern European countries (Estonia, Romania, Serbia);
• Arab and Middle Eastern nations (Egypt, Iran, Israel);
• Under-studied areas (East and Central Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa).

Providing an interwoven analysis of the international inequalities in internet usage and access, this important work offers a comprehensive approach to studying the digital divide around the globe. It is an important resource for academic and students in sociology, social policy, communication studies, media studies and all those interested in the questions and issues around social inequality.

Section 1
Theories of the digital divide

1 The reproduction and reconfiguration of inequality
Differentiation and class, status and power in the dynamics of digital divides

Bridgette Wessels
University of Sheffield

Introduction

The development and expanding use of digital technology within economic, political, social and cultural life on a global scale is raising concerns about the emergence of new inequalities and the reproduction of existing inequalities (Wyatt et al., 2000). These developments are part of rapid social change, which is ushering in an information and networked society (Castells, 1996, 2001; Webster, 2004). Some commentators argue that the global informational capitalism underpinning an information and networked society is generating increasingly fragmented and unequal societies (Robins and Webster, 1999; Fuchs, 2008). This chapter draws on the work of the founding fathers of sociology to address inequality in a global information society. To trace this link, the chapter introduces the idea of a digital divide before considering the way technology is situated in socio-cultural change and inequality. It then discusses digital divides in global informational capitalism and the formation of new inequalities. This is followed by the conclusion.

Digital technology, social relations, and the digital divide

For many people across the world the pervasiveness of digital technology — whether experienced as a presence or an absence — is significant. A distinctive aspect to digital technology is that it is both an artifact and a communication medium, which Silverstone and Hirsch (1994) call “double articulation.” This is important in terms of assessing inequality in a digitally enabled network society: it is not only the networked structuring of the technology and the ability to access and use it that are contributing factors in inequality but it also provides access to information and the public sphere, which is a key resource in an information society. In overall terms the significance of the technology lies in the way in which it is embedded within the relations of production; in information flows; and in the way it underpins participation. The utilization of technology within the economic, political, and socio-cultural processes of society shape inequality.

One can start to assess the significance of exclusion from social networks based on digital technology when one sees that it is the use of technology within social relations that produces inequality. One can see that inclusion into digitally enabled networks is significant in terms of the opportunities people have to engage in economic life and to participate in political, social, and cultural life. The embedding of digital technology in social, economic, democratic process and cultural forms is materializing and is experienced unevenly and differently by people across the globe. The differential development and use of digital technology within contexts of global inequality is creating a dynamic that is generating new forms of poverty and exclusion as well as reproducing existing inequalities and social divisions.

The current inequalities and divisions within information and networked society are often thought about in terms of a digital divide (Norris, 2000). The idea of a digital divide is a useful starting point in exploring the dynamics of inequality within a global information culture (Lash, 1999). Castells (2001) argues that the digital divide goes beyond those who have access to the Internet and those who do not have access. He writes that differing levels of access to, and usage of, digital services “adds a fundamental cleavage to existing sources of inequality and social exclusion in a complex interaction” (Castells, 2001, p. 247). The dimensions of digital divide can be understood as the dynamic of inclusion and exclusion that articulates the levels of digital and other resources that people have available to them within the social divisions of society. This means that people have unequal levels of opportunity to develop digital skills, to participate in democratic process, and enter the labor market (Garnham, 2005). The digital divide involves social, democratic and global divides (Norris, 2000), and is multi-dimensional (Wessels, 2010).

Some of the dimensions of the digital divide are as follows. First, ethnicity, age, gender, levels of education and socio-economic background and status are influential in the dynamics of the digital divide (Wessels, 2010). Second, there is a technological divide amongst world regions with different levels of infrastructure that prevent some regions linking into a global economy. Third, as Zillien and Marr (in Chapter 3 of this volume) point out, there is widening knowledge gap for those with low access, low skills, and little cultural capital to use digital resources. These dimensions configure in different ways across the globe. In the US the ethnic divide is still significant amongst digital inequalities (Wessels, 2010; Witte, Kiss and Lynn, Chapter 4 of this volume). The contributors of this volume show that the digital divide in developing countries is uneven with some cities and regions developing rapidly whilst others are disconnected. There are specific development needs of particular countries and if access and support is not provided inequalities will deepen, as seen for example in the Latin American context (Horwitz, Chapter 16 of this volume). Status and cultural factors interact with the take up of digital services, which fosters inequalities seen for example in Sub-Saharan Africa (Alzouma, Chapter 19 of this volume) and in Japan (Akiyoshi, Chapter 5 of this volume). Faris (Chapter 13 of this volume) outlines the dynamics of a democratic divide in accessing an online public sphere. The dynamics of these aspects are fostering greater inequality globally as the gap between the wealthy and poor widens around the digital divide (Castells, 2001).

The theoretical insights of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber about inequality are based on greater differentiation in a capitalist economy and its resulting organization of class, power and status in society. These themes can be traced into the current situation of a global networked society, its reconfiguration of class and its inequalities at local, national and global levels (Castells, 2001; Webster, 2004). Inequalities coalesce around the way technology is embedded within social relations.

Situating technology within the dynamics of socio-cultural change and inequality

The social shaping approaches to technology address the way in which technology is embedded in social relations. It argues that technology is shaped by social factors such as economic concerns and gender relations (MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1985). The way in which technology becomes meaningful within social relations is through the culture in which is it produced and consumed. Pfaffenberger (1988), for instance, argues that:

Technology expresses an embedded social vision, and it engages us in what Marx would call a form of life, including political, social and symbolic aspects of social life. It has a legal dimension, it has a history, it entails a set of social relationships and it has meaning (1988, p. 244).

Robins and Webster (1999) follow a similar type of analysis in which they see digital technology as: “articulating the social relations of the societies in which they are mobilized … [that includes] power relations” (p. 2). These types of conceptualizations encompass the social relations of digital technology, which address the social, political, and cultural dynamics of inequality and the digital divide.

Durkheim (1984), Marx (1976), and Weber (1922) raise the issue of inequality, and ask:

• Why does the pursuit of wealth seem to generate poverty on an unprecedented scale?

• Why do the principles of liberty and equality appear to go hand in hand with monstrous new forms of oppression? (Abrams, 1982, p. 4).

These classical sociologists address these questions in different ways. Weber (1922) emphasizes the development of bureaucracy, which is related to the increase in scale of organizations and to the division of labor. He sees distinctions between people based on class, status and power. Weber identifies rationalization as a fine calculation of means to ends rather than the value of ends, which celebrates efficiency in a dominant cult of technique. The combination of divisions based on class and status combines with rationalization to create an iron cage that locks people into specific positions and restricted life-worlds. Each of these positions influences the power individuals have to shape their life chances.

Marx (1976; Marx and Engels, 1968) addresses the division of labor and alienation within the capitalist mode of production when he identifies alienation in the labor process and in the productive activity of the worker. Alienation expresses the fact that the organization of productive relationships constitutes a class system resting on the exploitative dominance of one class by another, and the division of labor identifies occupational specialization as the source of fragmentation of work into routine and undemanding tasks (Giddens, 1979). For Marx the hallmark of capitalism is the emergence of a class of producers who own nothing but their own labor-power that they are forced to sell in return for wages paid by the owners of the means of production. The work of Marx (and Engels) highlights the relationships of inequality in a market economy and in political arrangements associated with capitalism (Abrams, 1982).

Durkheim (1984) argues that structural differentiation fosters individualism as he observes that labor is becoming more divided and specialized. The division of labor results from the struggle of individuals to flourish in the face of the increasing volume and density of the population and pressures on resources (Abrams, 1982). For Durkheim differentiation creates inequalities that are part of a larger, more complex social system. Within this system, institutions are important in supporting social cohesion. Thus education is important in supporting organic solidarity and in supporting individuals to develop specialisms so that each could integrate into the labor market. The education system is also significant in sustaining a sense of conscience collective — a collective sense of values and morals — that underpins social order.

Marx (1976), Weber (1922), and Durkheim (1984) identify the emergence of inequalities through increased differentiation in market based economies. These inequalities are about material resources, about personal fulfillment and enchantment, and about senses of belonging to a community or collective. These issues are traced into global capitalism in the following section.

Situating the dynamics of digital divides in global informational capitalism

The innovation of digital technology alongside globalization, neo-liberalism, and consumerism is generating social transformation and is ushering in what some commentators call an “information society” (Webster, 2004) or a “networked society” (Castells, 2001). In changes to a network and information society there is continuity in that the economy is still based on capitalism (Robins and Webster, 1999). The use of digital technology in economic activity is situated within global capitalism that is based on a networked organization of production processes and patterns of consumption (Fuchs, 2008).

This networked organization of social and economic life is facilitated by a digital infrastructure for an e-economy and information society (Castells, 2001). For economies to be competitive in a global market, they need to be connected to the digital infrastructure and they require a labor force that has the education and skills to work in an e-economy. From the point of view of ordinary people their life chances are linked to having the capability to work in the e-economy to ensure employment. The acquisition of the appropriate education and skills to enable people to engage in economic life is differentiated amongst class, cultural capital and status, gender, ethnicity, digital literacy and opportunities across the life course at the local, regional, and national level. Furthermore as digital technology is embedded in political communication, individuals need access and...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Author biographies
• Preface
• Introduction
• Section 1 Theories of the digital divide
• Section 2 Highly developed nations and regions
• Section 3 Rapidly developing large nations — the BRIC nations
• Section 4 Eastern Europe
• Section 5 The Middle East region
• Section 6 Under-studied countries and regions
• Index