PAPER PUBLISHED IN BOOK – ‘BRIDGING DIGITAL DIVIDE’ McMillan India, Advanced Research Series, January 2007

ABSTRACT

DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES ON THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

The digital divide is a phenomenon that is discussed ad nauseum in the current discourses on development both at the national as well as the international level. It can be broadly understood as the difference in the way that different sections of the population are able to relate at different levels to the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the resultant disparity caused therein.

First a broad definition to ‘digital divide’ is given in the paper. In this attempt, the need to understand the digital divide by taking into account its multidimensional complexities is reiterated. Then, this divide is sought to be located within two major theories of development namely, the Dependency theory and the Modernization theory.

To get a holistic understanding of the digital divide, the different dimensions of the divide are seen. The democratic potential of cyberspace is analyzed to see if it can give a political voice to the hitherto marginalized sections. The economic dimension is then elaborated and is seen to be the most important dimension. The actual cultural dimension of the divide between English and non-English linguistic groups are then seen. The potential cultural divide is also explained. Then the link between the spatial development divide and the hierarchy of computer networks are then seen. The broad social dimensions like that of gender, of the digital divide are analyzed. The difference between exclusion from information and exclusion by information is then seen. The reason for the contrast between the enormous amount of discourses generated on this topic and the lack of substantive efforts being taken at the ground level has to be explained. Whether the digital divide builds on the existing fault-lines of society and whether it widens or narrows down that fault-line has to be analyzed.

There can be two extreme perspectives that can be applied to understand the digital divide. One is Technological determinism and the other is Social determinism. This paper tries to find out the most appropriate scientific perspective that can be applied for understanding the digital divide and arrives at the Social Shaping of Technology or the SST perspective. The validity of this perspective and the need for adopting this perspective is explained.

After getting an appropriate perspective, there is a need for understanding whether the digital divide is an effect or a cause of wider extra-digital socio-economic phenomena. For this, a framework for understanding the digital divide is evolved. This framework also tries to integrate the digital divide with the wider socio-economic development divide. The insights that can be got from the framework and the practical implications of this framework if any are analyzed.


CONTENTS


1. INTRODUCTION

2. DEFINITION AND MEANING

3. MAJOR DIMENSIONS OF THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

4. DIGITAL DIVIDE AND THE THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT

5. TECHNOLOGY, SOCIETY AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

6. A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

7. CONCLUSION

8. REFERENCES




























1. INTRODUCTION
Currently, the developed countries of the world and the bulk of the developing countries seem to be in the Information Age or seem to be in the development trajectory that will take them to the Information age. The Information age is one that is characterized by the primacy of information in all spheres of society. There can be many reasons for this primacy being given to information but in the realm of technology, it is due to those technologies which can be broadly termed as the ICTs (the Information and Communication Technologies). The ICTs are those revolutionary kind of technologies which have evolved as a result of the fusion of two hitherto distinct kind of technologies, viz, the Information Technologies and the Telecommunication technologies.
Closely associated with this Information age is a concept which goes by the name of the "digital divide". In a very broad sense, digital divide can be said to denote the difference in the way different sections of the society relate at different levels to the ICTs and the resultant extra-technological disparities therein. The term "digital divide" appears to have originated in newspaper reports and was popularized in the 1995 U.S. government report "Falling through the Net. (Hawkins 2003).
Analyzing the digital divide becomes important for two reasons. The first is that if the digital divide is bridged, it may contribute to economic growth. The second and the more important reason is that the digital divide remains one of the most patent examples of an iniquitous fact of the current trajectory of global development. So, bridging this digital divide becomes an economic as well as a moral imperative. In the context of this paper, the term digital technologies and cyberspace are meant to connote not only internet but also all the telecommunications technologies in the broadest sense of the term. The context in which this paper has been written includes the global, the national and the local.
2. DEFINITION AND MEANING

Before a rigorous analysis is done, it may be instructive to define this concept at the very basic level.

The concept of the digital divide has three dimensions (Steyaert 2002) viz,

i) Physical access to the Information technologies.
ii) Technology-illiteracy: It refers to the knowledge to operate the technology.
iii) Information-illiteracy. This refers to the attitude to search for relevant information, translate that to one's own situation and implement the necessary actions. This is the most critical element that makes the 'digital divide' a societal issue of extreme importance.

Physical access has two components, firstly, direct access to the new ICTs and secondly, the possibility to actually use those ICTs even if there is access. For example, Indian Dalits may technically have physical access to an Information Kiosk but may not be able to access it due to caste restrictions. Although physical access to computers and networks appears to be problematic on the short run, in the long run, the other two are more critical.

Viewed analytically, the digital divide may be of different types. They are (Keniston & Kumar 2004).

a) The digital divide that exists within every nation
b) The digital divide between sections of the population which are differently enabled in the cultural sense. Even between the genders, there may be a definite cultural divide.
c) The digital divide between the rich and the poor nations.

3. MAJOR DIMENSIONS OF THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

Here, an analysis of the digital divide across its various dimensions like the spatial, political, economical, social and the cultural realm is done. In all of these realms, the analysis of the dynamics of the divide can be done by locating it in a historical timeframe. Across all these realms, the divide can be conceptualized in two ways, ie, how the access to ICTs is affected by the pre-existing divide in these realms and how this differential access shapes the existing extra-technological divide in these realms. The analysis can also be at different levels like the micro, national and the international level.

3.1. Economic Dimensions

The idea of bridging the digital divide in the literature reflects the developed world’s view of what is lacking in the developing countries, of what developed countries have and developing countries have not (IPTS 2001). This may be understood as a feature of the modernization paradigm of development.

Riggins (2004) states that the digital divide artificially segments the marketplace and bridging the divide can result in lower product quality and lesser service for low-type consumers. So, the patent aim of bridging the digital divide can also serve as a marketing strategy by the corporate sector for market segmentation. Regarding e-commerce, it requires a level of business acumen and support structures that are as yet rare in the world. (Wresch 2003). So, overall, the development of e-commerce may result in the deepening of the digital divide in spite of developments like e-chouppal of ITC which aim at using e-commerce to bring rural producers to the mainstream markets.

For Quah (1996), the defining feature of the new economy is the increasing variety of goods and services, from business computer software to music, that take the form and properties of knowledge goods, namely, ‘infinite expansibility’, ‘weightlessness’ or ‘dematerialization’, and ‘non-rivalrousness’. Infinite expansibility means that the marginal costs of production is minuscule, weightlessness signifies that goods can be distributed virtually, and non-rivalry means that one individual's consumption does not prevent another's. In principle, these features should lead to an increasingly egalitarian world but in practice, as Quah pointed out, social divisions are widening. How can this paradox be explained?

Within capitalist societies, infinite expansibility and weightlessness leads to economic concentration. Infinite expansibility means that knowledge goods are subject to increasing economies of scale and therefore a tendency to monopoly, because the low marginal cost means that firms can always lower their prices temporarily to eliminate new competitors. Quah (1996). Infinite expansibility of the knowledge goods without an attendant increase in access may mean that the digital divide may increase to infinite proportions. Another issue is that being digitally connected has an influence on the international economic attractiveness of countries by making them targets for FDI and other investments. (Steyaert 2002). This means that countries which are not able to achieve the critical mass necessary, will lag behind in the digital race in a qualitative manner.

Telecommunications costs are inversely related to the number of subscribers (“network effect”) and so the developing countries will have to increase their telecom capacities at a higher cost because in most developing countries there are proportionately fewer subscribers to the telecommunication system than in industrialized countries (Campbell 2001).

This economic factor of the digital divide outweigh all others in predicting cross-national differences in access to the information society. (Norris 2001). One study says that the gap between developed and developing countries has continued to widen since the early 1990s. (Guillén & Suárez 2004).

Sometimes, the discourses on bridging the digital divide become one that aids the process of liberalization, privatization and globalization. The need for the government loosening its control over this ICT industry and allowing the free operations of the private players is posited as a technological need, something that will take the technology to the masses. In the case of India, T.H Chowdary says, ‘In 1998, the Internet Service Policy (ISP) was first enunciated which ended the monopoly of the government company, VSNL in the area of internet service provision. The licence conditions were fantabulously different from those that were for the other services like the fixed and mobile telephony, radio paging, e-mail etc. In the light of this, the previous licences for those other services appeared ridiculous.’ (Chowdary 2004). We find that, over here, the rhetoric is couched in a language that promoted de-licensing and hence liberalization and its twin cousin of privatization.

The discourses at both the national and the international level which are apparently aimed at bridging the digital divide, often become proposals for increasing the growth of the IT business (Keniston & Kumar 2004). The software industry may actually widens the economic gap between the digerati (the newly affluent elite) and the other people of the developing nations. This means that there is a lot of credibility in the thesis that, the discourses at the national level of developing countries may actually benefit only the newly formed elite of the Information age.
Economic dimension of the digital divide

Formation of monopolies.
Development divide between different nations widens.
‘Digital divide’- a strategy for creating markets
E-commerce induced disparity between different firms.

Techno –economic problems compound it.
Entry of ICTs -coupled with privatization
Figure 1

3.2. Political Dimensions

Most internet communications occurs along fiber-optic lines leased from telecommunications companies (which carry 80% of international communications), many of which are state regulated, in contrast to the largely unregulated state of the internet itself. (Warf 2001). So, it means that there is considerable scope for the government’s political influence vis-à-vis the digital divide. But the governments of different nation states don’t seem to be influencing the digital divide in the right direction. Their initiatives regarding deregulation in telecommunications, started with the breakup of AT&T by the US government and the privatization of British Telecommunications by the British government. This has spread rapidly in many countries and this will most likely lead to more use-based pricing and fewer cross-subsidies a trend that is likely to make access to cyberspace less affordable. (Warf 2001).

The constraints to internet access are not only economic but also political, given that the electronic dissemination of knowledge, by making people aware of their rights and by disseminating news and views about the injustices of society can challenge established relations of power (Warf 2001). This may mean that the provision of internet facilities may not be in the interest of the dominant powers that be. Theoretically, in a technical sense, the internet can enable everyone to participate in the political process on a more or less equal footing. Further, it can give a political voice to the numerous marginalized groups across the world by allowing them to network with each other and by broadcasting their plight to the rest of the world. The internet can also qualitatively quicken up the different political processes like elections, referenda, recall etc. Thus the internet has an enormous democratic potential. But, this potential may not be realized because the internet may only mean democracy for a chosen few. “While a relatively small, educated, and affluent elite in a few countries and cities would have access to an extraordinary tool for accessing information and for political participation, actually enhancing their citizenship, the uneducated, switched off masses of the world, and of the country, would remain excluded from the new democratic core, as were slaves and barbarians at the onset of democracy in classical Greece'' (Castells, 1997).

Indeed, cyberspace may open up ‘public spheres’ in the Habermasian sense which stand for a space where citizens can interact and one that can provide an operating platform for democratic communication systems. And this public spheres may provide for unfettered political discourses. But the problem is that, in an age in which social life is not only increasingly mediated through computer networks but fundamentally altered by them, the annihilation of public spaces and their reconstruction around the increasingly commodified, privatized spaces of cyberspace has disturbing implications for those without the wealth and power to gain access to the internet.(Grossman, 1995). So, the political divide seems to have assumed newer and deeper dimensions rather than being obliterated by cyberspace.

Political dimensions

Democracy for a chosen few.
Potential for government regulation.to bridge the divide
Potential for ICTs to challenge the dominant political powers.
Figure 2

3.3. Spatial Dimensions

There is a hype that cyberspace spells the `end of geography' because of the instantaneous communication that it can offer to its users. Cyberspace also promises universal, democratic entree to the electronic highways of the world economy. But contrary to these claims, access to the internet is very unevenly distributed both socially and spatially (Warf 2001). The spatial dimensions of the divide can be understood by seeing that more than 97% of all internet hosts are in developed countries that are home to only 16% of the world's population (Okoli et al 2003).

Regarding the distribution of ICT firms, there could still theoretically be a widely spatially dispersed pattern of large ICT firms supplying global markets. However, because external economies of scale are important for these knowledge firms, there are only a limited number of clusters, such as the "milieu of innovation" found in New York (Manhattan), San Francisco, the City of London, Paris (Quartier de l'opera), Tokyo (Shibuya), or Sao Paulo (Nova Faria Lima), that connect with the entire world (Castells 2001, 228-29). Moreover, so far, the ICT sector has developed largely by attracting people to these spatial "milieus of innovation", rather than by developing local skills, and thus this region-specific development has become a part of, rather than challenging, the digital divide. (Perrons 2004). Thus the development divide between these milieus of innovation and the rest of the geographical spaces tends to increase.

The term ‘digerati’ denotes the nouveau riche classes cutting across the developing countries who got their new status due to their professional association with ICTs. (Brockman, 1996). The development of the internet is likely to cause the global `digerati' become increasingly disconnected from the local environments of their own cities and countries. Since its inception at the hands of the US military, the very architecture of the internet has revolved around a handful of nodes that route internet traffic, all of which have been clustered in cities of academic or governmental significance. The resulting patterns of service provision became steadily restructured by corporate Internet Service Providers in partnership with backbone providers (such as AT&T, MCIWorldcom, and Sprint), generating a geography centered largely in metropolitan areas, whose concentrations of affluent users generate economies of scale that lead to the highest rates of profit (Warf 2001). This seems to be the trend in the third world countries also. The implications could be that the ICTs exacerbate the spatial development divide in all countries.

Access to the internet is deeply conditioned by where one is, which is in turn a reflection of relations of wealth and power. Long-standing categories of core and periphery are all too apparent within cyberspace, such as the divisions between developed and less-developed nations, or cities and rural areas. Thus, electronic systems simultaneously reflect and transform existing topographies of class, gender, and ethnicity, creating and recreating hierarchies of places mirrored in the spatial architecture of computer networks (Warf 2001). Thus there seems to be a two-way causality between spatial architecture of computer networks with its hierarchies and the hierarchies of geographical spaces.

Global access to the internet is deeply conditioned by the density, reliability, and affordability of national telephone systems, which form the heart of the architecture of cyberspace. During the Cold War: Soviet-backed regimes distrusted the telephone, which allows two-way communication, and preferred television, which allows only one-way flows of information (Warf 2001). So, the countries of the erstwhile Eastern block have to grapple with the baggage of history while contending with the problem of the digital divide.
Spatial dimensions
Access to ICTs - unevenly distributed
Limited number of ICT innovation clusters concentrated in metropolises
Innovation clusters exacerbate the spatial development divide
Two-way causality between spatial architectural hierarchies of computer N/Ws and hierarchies of geographical spaces.

Figure 3

3.4. Social Dimensions

Scholars have noted that the internet tends to reinforce existing class and social relations both within and across countries (Mosco 1996; McChesney 1999; Everett 1998). The digital divide does not create new fault lines in society, but by and large replicates the existing social stratification (at least when defined in terms of physical access). (Steyaert 2002). This should hold good for telecommunications also to a smaller extent. Further, certain sectors and societies are completely excluded from the new networks of information, effectively creating ’black holes of informational capitalism’. These black holes constitute the Fourth World, which comprises ‘large areas of the globe, such as sub-Saharan Africa...impoverished rural areas of Latin America and Asia’ (Castells, 2000).

A recent paper from demos (an UK based think-tank) argues that the real challenge is not exclusion from information, but exclusion by information. If there is information about a person, then the dominant powers that be can decide whether to include or exclude that person in other networks of power, influence or wealth. “ The rise of a digital economy based on detailed personal profiles means that organisations - public, private and voluntary - are increasingly able to exclude large numbers of people from access to basic services and opportunities on the grounds that they constitute 'bad risks'”. (Gourova 2001). This exclusion may happen even if these excluded people, by themselves, have technical access to the ICTs.

Nowadays, talking about the ‘digital divide’ is fashionable not only in the international multilateral agencies, but in national policy formulation circles, in academic discourses and in other multilateral fora. ‘The digital divide–the gap between those sections of the population with and those without access to information technology (IT)–is a highly debated social issue’ (Norris 2001). But there seems to be more of intellectual debates and discussions going on about the ‘digital divide’ than substantive efforts being taken to bridge the divide. This may just be taken as just another example of the fractured relationship between theory and practice in any aspect of human development. But a closer analysis may reveal something else. We are currently in a phase of history which is unprecedented in the levels of economic inequality seen. So, as a society the ‘collective conscience’ as Emile Durkheim would say, has to be satisfied that there is no grave injustice being done and that everything is fine (Haralambos 1980). This is needed because only then can society function as it is. So, the huge amount of discourse about the need for bridging the digital divide may serve this purpose of a self-fulfilling legitimizing mechanism which helps to maintain a healthy collective conscience at the national and the global realm, which helps to legitimize the status-quo.

Internet use is heavily gendered (Doheny-Farina, 1996; Miller, 1996). In a patriarchal culture, the socialization of girls does not make them friendly to technology. To them, technology is said to be a `guy thing' and the internet is no exception to this rule. So, they are frequently under-confident when working with machines.

Discourses about digital divide - a means to soothe society’s collective conscience.
Normal fault lines of society replicated in cyberspace
Exclusion by Information
Gender divisions carried on to the digital realm.
Some sections completely
excluded.
Social dimensions
Figure 4

3.5. Cultural Dimensions

Language is a definite barrier since roughly 90% of all internet content today is in English (Roussel, 1999). So, one cultural dimension of the divide is currently manifested as a divide between the English and the non-English speakers. But for those huge regions that share common languages and thus have big linguistic groups like the Arab world and much of Latin America – the internet can be the great unifier and creator of business opportunities and hence of higher living standards.(Cattaui 2001). But a digital divide may potentially emerge between these big linguistic groups and the rest of the small linguistic groups which don’t have such a common critical cultural mass.
Cultural dimensions of the digital divide

Between English and Non-English groups of users. (actual)

Between big linguistic groups and small linguistic groups of users. (potential)


Figure 5


4. DIGITAL DIVIDE AND THE THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT

Here, we’ll see how digital divide, as we broadly understand it, can be located within two major theories of development, viz, the modernization theory and the dependency theory.

4.1 Digital divide and the Modernization theory

The modernization theory of development assumes that there is a single goal of ‘modernity’ and ‘development’ towards which all societies have to ‘progress’. Presented as a detached rationality capable to improve human condition, the modernization discourse creates a regime of truth, which passes judgment on social groups, determines their needs, prescribes how they should change and towards what goals they should change (Avergou 2000).

Applying this idea of modernization, we realize that the theme underlying the digital divide is one that considers the developed countries to be at an advanced stage of informatization and these countries are seen to be a model for the developing countries which have to bridge the ‘gap’ or ‘divide’ between themselves and the developed countries as regards the information technologies. The modernization paradigm of development gives an important role to technology in the process of development. ‘The modernization discourse conceives social life as a technical issue, and its improvement is entrusted to technical experts, capable of rational decision making and management’. (Avergou 2000). This agrees with the underlying importance given to technology in the discourses on the digital divide.
Moreover, modernization theory believes that the transfer of foreign technologies from developed countries to developing countries is a costless process which happens automatically and this results in positive knowledge externalities that serve as a public good available for free. This can solve the problem of technological backwardness and this can usher in modernization. (Rothboeck 2000). So, according to the modernization paradigm, the digital divide can be bridged by simple transfer of technology from the developed to the developing countries. But this kind of an understanding does not seem to cover the complex reality of the process of technology transfer.

4.2. Digital divide and the Dependency theory

Here, we’ll see how digital divide, as we broadly understand it, can be located within the dependency theory of development. The weltanschuang of this school sees the world as divided into the ‘Centre’ and the ‘Periphery’. The countries of the Centre are the advanced capitalist countries and the countries of the Periphery are the developing and the least developed countries. Dependency theory says that the developing countries are dependent on more advanced ones for capital, technology and access to information. As a result, peripheral countries become relatively more impoverished (Pritchett 1997). Into this dependency relationship, if the factor of ‘Information dependency’ is also introduced, then it may enhance the dependency relationship in a qualitative manner and thus exacerbate the development divide. Research has shown that the geographical distribution of high-technology exports, computer power, and internet hosts follows the hierarchical pattern of the core-periphery system. (Gunaratne 2002).

As regards the information technologies, Communication scholars attuned to dependency theory have long pointed out that the development of the media and the digital revolution are driven by politico-economic forces, including the activities of media corporations and the policies of the dominant nation-states in the world (Davidson 2002; McChesney 1999; Mosco 1996; Schiller 1996). This means that the development of these information technologies and hence the divide associated with these technologies is something that is not the natural outcome of the operation of economic forces but is an integral part of the associated political processes.

Information technology, by making it simpler to ship off individual parts of the economic production process overseas, has contributed to the de-industrialization of parts of the developed world and has rendered much more complex the division of labour between the developed and the third world countries, which can no longer be analyzed in terms of a simple distinction between the ‘head’ and the ‘hands’ as in the classical Dependency theory (Brusco, Siegel, Bluestone, Harrison 1982). It seems that we are on the threshold of a world that is divided on digital fault-lines. That fault-line need not correspond with national boundaries but may lie very well within nations of both the centre and the periphery. Digital divide within nations and the digital divide between the digitally empowered enclaves of the world from the rest may become an area of greater concern than the digital divide between nations.

In recent times, there is a hope evinced in certain quarters that the rapid development of the ICT sector in some developing countries of Asia may serve as an engine of growth for the rest of the economy. But while industrial production has been internationalized, strategic planning and lucrative pace-setting innovations in the ICT sector are still concentrated in a few dominant regions mainly in the USA, Japan and in certain cases in Europe. (Bornschier and Chase-Dunn 1992; Hein 1995). For example, in the software industry, India’s competitive advantage lies not in the innovative field of complete software packages production but in standardized programming and data entry (Rothboeck 2000). Even South Korea, has not been yet been able to overcome the problem of technology dependency (OECD 1996a,b). So, it may not be possible for the ICT enabled thrust given to economic growth in the periphery, will enable it to break the chains of dependency that bind it to the core.

5. TECHNOLOGY, SOCIETY AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

A correct understanding of the digital divide needs a correct scientific perspective. The notion of restructuring society on more egalitarian lines with the help of ICTs cannot be compared to the alleged “deep“, or “fun­damental“ modernization suggested by the rhetoric of “radical“ change, the IT-“revolution“, the complete “reengineering“ of whole societies, etc., as emphasized in a multiplicity of local and supra-local discourses. (Ilyes 2003). The process of restructuring through ICTs appears to be a similar to a process called ”conservative modernization“ wherein politically induced reforms or restructuring did not lead to a new distribu­tion of property, as hoped for, but perpetuated traditional concentrations of income, and by that the traditional pattern of inequality (Ilyes 2003; Graziano 2002).

There can be three different perspectives on the relation between development and technology. One on the one extreme, we have Technological determinism and on the other, we have Social determinism of technology.

Technological determinism means that it is the development of technology that determines the evolution of social institutions. All through history we have seen that many technological innovations have been closely associated with major changes in the evolution of society. For example, the invention of the plough was closely associated with settled agriculture and the rise of ancient river valley civilizations like Sumeria, Indus valley etc, the invention of the printing press was closely associated with the Renaissance and the subsequent Reformation in Europe. But the singular fact that technological innovations happen in the same period of history as social transformations does not suggest even a causality between the two leave alone giving us the liberty to assume that technological transformations cause social upheavals.

Social determinism means that it is the social institutions that shape the evolution and usage of technology. It says that technology is just a tool of the class or the section or institution of society that uses it and that it does not have autonomy of its own. For example, in ancient Egypt, the invention of the technology of writing helped to form an elite class of clerks which helped to further consolidate the powers of the Egyptian Pharaoh. But the weakness of this perspective is that it completely ignores the autonomy that technology per se might be having in determining the change in the evolution of social institutions.

In contrast to both the perspective of Technological determinism and the Social determinism of technology, there is this SST or Social Shaping of Technology perspective which takes a middle ground (Russell & Williams, 2002). It says that technology can have some autonomy of its own. The general position regarding social shaping may be enunciated as follows: social processes shape not only the form and features (i.e., the content) of particular technologies, but also the patterns, general characteristics, and direction of technologies across whole areas of development and application (Russell & Williams, 2002). Central to the social shaping approach is the idea that there are 'choices' (though not necessarily conscious choices) inherent in both the design of individual artefacts and systems, and in the direction or trajectory of innovation programmes (Williams & Edge, 1996). Choices between different socio-technical options potentially available at every stage are highlighted (Genus & Nor 2005). Application of a social shaping perspective draws attention to other factors of significance towards bridging the international digital divide. They have been cited above to include skill and self-efficacy to use ICTs effectively, intellectual, social and human capital, and technological culturation. (Genus & Nor 2005).

Under this SST approach, cyberspace can be viewed as a socially constructed discourse that simultaneously reflects and constitutes social reality. So, the social institutions constituting society as such and cyberspace have a two-way dialectic relationship with each other with each influencing the evolution and dynamics of the other. The evolution of cyberspace and its dynamics are influenced by forces from inside the sphere of social relations and not from some alien force outside it.
SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
CYBERSPACE
Direction of influence
Figure 6

The SST perspective seems to strike the correct balance between the two extreme positions of Technological determinism and Social determinism of technology. It gives a place for all kinds of social institutions in the analytical framework that can be employed to understand the interaction of technology with social reality. So, it seems that this is the most epistemologically sound of all perspectives to understand the place of technology in social reality.


TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
TECHNOLOGY







SOCIAL DETERMINISM OF TECHNOLOGY




SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
TECHNOLOGY




SOCIAL SHAPING OF TECHNOLOGY


SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
TECHNOLOGY







Direction of influence


Figure 7




6. A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

The digital divide is, a varying landscape which manifests itself in a range of indigenous factors and external structures. (Gourova 2001). It has been found that the digital divide can be defined in terms of the technology and infrastructure that forms the base of ICTs, ICT tools, ICT content, ICT related knowledge and skills, and in terms of international power relations. (Gourova et al 2001). But such approaches are clearly lacking in depth and by and large don’t provide a very scientific analysis because they don’t realize the social embeddedness of technology and the multifarious complexity of the problem. Most of these approaches tend to take a techno-managerial view of the problem.

Here a theoretical framework for understanding the digital divide is developed. The digital divide should be seen as a dynamic phenomenon and should not be viewed with an ahistorical perspective. A scientific understanding of the digital divide will need us to take a middle-path between the socio-technological structure, human agency and the social institutions. Hence the framework to be proposed is best situated in the SST or the Social Shaping of Technology perspective. The digital divide, if analyzed under the Social Shaping of Technology perspective can be analytically understood as both a cause and effect, with it being first a cause and then an effect and then this effect becomes a cause for further widening of the digital divide.

From Steyaert’s (2002) definition of the digital divide, it consists of three dimensions, they are,

a) Physical access
b) 'Informacy'
c) Information-illiteracy

The above mentioned three dimensions constitute the ‘Cause’ Dimension of the digital divide. The ‘Cause’ dimension of the digital divide will influence a part of the existing development divide and this can be termed as the ‘Effect’ dimension of the digital divide. This ‘Effect dimension’ will be of different types like economic, social, political, cultural, spatial divide etc. All these development divides are inextricably linked with each other and influence each other. All these aspects of the development divide feedback into the ‘Cause’ dimension of the digital divide.
DIGITAL DIVIDE
CAUSE
EFFECT
PHYSICAL ACCESS
INFORMACY
INFORMATION ILLITERACY
DEVELOPMENT DIVIDE COMPONENTS
Economic
Cultural
Political
Spatial
Direction of influence
Social
Figure 8

The advantage of this framework is that, it tries to reflect the multidimensional complexity of the problem. By providing for the reverse influence of social institutions on technology, it also avoids the mistake of ossifying technology and freezing it for the purpose of understanding its effects. By bringing in a human-influenced dynamism into the relation between the different elements that constitute the framework, it avoids committing the fallacy of reification, ie, of considering the relation between people to be a relation between extra-human “things”. The lines of influence between the different components of the framework should not be taken as connoting a rigorous causality because in the complex process of development, cause and effect relations cannot be established easily.

7. CONCLUSION

Digital divide is a complex phenomenon. At this stage in the evolution of ICTs and their integration into social production and social life, it cannot be said with certainty whether the digital divide is decreasing or increasing at all levels. Regarding a solution to bridge the divide, there is no simple or single solution. The attempt at bridging the digital divide will need us to think beyond ICTs and reflect on the wider extra-digital divides in society. That attempt has to be dovetailed with the other attempts at bridging the numerous other divides at the national as well as the global level. The framework that has been proposed will help in this regard. The solution proposed also has to come as much from social science as from management or technology per se.

The framework proposed, because of its circular causation, foretells that there may be a danger of a ever-widening digital divide. This should alert policy makers and other concerned citizens and business houses to the gravity of the problem and make them take steps which might be of a radical nature. The framework can give broad pointers to policy makers to tackle this phenomenal problem.



















REFERENCES:

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