The Dynamics of the Digital Divide

Digital divide is a popular metaphor used to describe the social and territorial differences in the adoption of the Internet. While some regard the divide as a transitory phenomenon, others ask for political measures to overcome the divide. In this article the phenomenon is examined from a macro perspective, a micro/meso perspective and with a look at the evolving topology of the Internet. Usually a static view on the divide problem predominates. Recent research reveals that the issue is not restricted to the question of access to the network but includes Internet usage and usage patterns. Thus, divide or digital differentiation and inequality are continuous rather than discrete properties. From the Internet’s inception institutional and political factors have accounted for the emergence as well as the mitigation of differences concerning access to and use of the Internet. Differentiation tends to reproduce itself in the sense that with this highly innovative technology ever new features and services are developed, which turn out to be sources of new lines of differentiation. Moreover, research into the structure of large (‘scale free’) networks provides evidence that even equal access to and use of the Internet does not create a level playing field. Rather a ‘power law’ distribution of the number of connections per user or website (node) evolves. Here comparatively few nodes (hubs) have very many links, while the vast majority of nodes have only few connections to their network environment. Digital differentiation As access to and usage of the Internet has been increasing dramatically in the industrialised world since the second half of the 1990s, the research interest of social scientists has gradually shifted from focusing solely on access to the Internet to studying the social implications and repercussions of the network. But also in this context, as is emphasised in a review article by DiMaggio et al., ‘research on inequality in access to and use of the Internet [remains] an important priority for sociologists’ (DiMaggio et al. 2001, 314). The term ‘digital divide’ refers to this aspect of social inequality. Ironically it was coined in the United States where the Internet was first set up and initially reached a comparatively high level of diffusion. But nonetheless the issue of Internet and inequality has drawn much attention, political as well as scientific, in the US. One reason for this high degree of attention has been the institutionalisation of a broad universal service concept in the mid-1990s as part of the Clinton Administration’s National Information Infrastructure Initiative. The US Telecommunications Act, which was adopted in 1996, contains the general Universal Service goal of promoting the availability of quality services at just, reasonable, and affordable rates. The obligations of Section 254 of this Act require public support to help, inter alia, schools, libraries and public non-profit health care providers that are located in rural areas obtain access to state of the art services and technologies at discounted rates. Stipulating ‘state of the art services and technologies’ the Act goes beyond the traditional focus on telephone penetration and includes access to the Internet (cf. Bertot 2003). The Telecommunications Act conveys the vision of an information society from which no citizen may be excluded (cf. Pisjak & Schrems 1997). Non-access to the Internet would limit the citizens’ opportunities to obtain education, to find jobs, or to access market and government information. Conversely, access to the network would create opportunities ‘to convene regardless of geographic, physical or financial constraints’ and participate in political dialog. This would enable free speech and strengthen democracy (Keller 1995, 35). Against this backdrop of strong institutional support of the Internet, the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) started conducting surveys addressing differences in Internet access and use. The results were published in the ‘Falling Through the Net’ series. The first report, issued in 1995, stressed the divide between those without Internet access called the ‘information disadvantaged’ or ‘have nots’ and the ‘haves’ (NTIA 1995). Follow-up surveys reiterated the divide’s persistence (NTIA 1999). But more recent studies indicate rapidly expanding access to and increasing use of the Internet by American people ‘regardless of income, education, age, races, ethnicity, or gender’ (NTIA 2002). The latest NTIA report, released in September 2004, cites President Bush, who established the national goal of providing 308 Raymund Werle