While globalization affects all citizens, only some take part in the new global discourse, established by technology, while others do not. I would like to illustrate this paradox an adaptation of the Orwellian[1] quote, whose preface of his Animal Farm also alluded to “The Freedom of the Press”: All citizens are global, but some citizens are more global(ly endowed) than others. While the means of media production are available to the former usership, a part of the world citizenry can become active, creating its own forums and actively communicating issues, while the “Other” part is dropped into the oblivion of the information gap.[2]
Pippa Norris refers to the information gap and digital divide as “information poverty”.[3]
This term implies a shortage of monetary resources that results in lacking the information re-source and therefore being left-out of the information dis-course. In cyberspace, these resource shortcomings not only affect the access, but also the self-distribution of information.
While global interdependency is a fact throughout the world, global information as well as taking part in the global discourse is not a globally available resource. I argue that the digital divide primarily is an economic issue, not only a political one, and that its resolve lies both within economic distribution of resources and political allocation of rights.
My understanding of access to cyberspace as a resource is therefore not an absolute concept. There are degrees to accessibility–technological gadgets, the speed of the internet access, as well as available time resources and cyber literacy–that influence online reception and, more importantly, participation activity in the discourse.[4] There is not only a geographical divide or gap, there is also a technological one. The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) site makes this graspable, offering different internet speeds in a Digital Divide Simulator.[5]
[1] Orwell, George: Animal Farm. London: Penguin 2008.
http://www.gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100011h.html, <10.>.
[2] I thank my advisor, Prof. Majer-O’Sickey, for her help with understanding this metaphor. The concept of gap and divide describe a spatial separation. Information poverty describes a shortage.
[3] Norris, Pippa: Information Poverty and the Wired World. The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics Volume 5, Number 3, Summer 2000, p. 1.
[4] I became aware of the digital divide during my stay in South Africa. Means like a digital divide simulator are crucial to understand the real technological impact.
[5]This simulation was retrieved from the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). The organization is a hybrid institution between the Italian government and two UN agencies, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
See: http://wireless.ictp.it/simulator/, <10.>.
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