Digital Divide

The most pressing social problem of the Information Age is the �digital divide’. Explain what this divide is and its causes. Propose measures aimed at redressing this problem.

Introduction

Media is one of the common mediums ways where people can get the information; media is basically used in people’s everyday life. As the world changes into a modern ways, the media also developed into some higher technological system. The coming out of the new information and communications systems are the creation of having the �information society’ (Loader 1998:3). Therefore, the information technology has brought the fundamental changes throughout the society. The technological change has shifted the industrial and age into a network age. Then it has affected the existing social construction and it responses and patterns the social inequality (Servon 2002). The access of the media information technology and the digital divide will be examined in this following essay; it will be analysed from the measures and factors which are related to digital divide, as well as the measures depiction of redressing the problem.

Discussions

Information Age and New Media

In these days, old media changes its time into a new transition of a new media, which is the media environment, and this industries are being transformed by powerful technological, economic, as well as the social forces. The media development has been developed for years; however, the continuous development of technology where it can enlarge and expand the power and control the information to individual users and groups.

The old media such as television, radio, print media, others where these are the common mediums for gaining information accessible for many people’ however, the media systems continually increase and develop with these developments such as the internet, and digital technology in new media is evolving. According to Kuttan & Peters (2003:4), the increasing changes of technology have strong relationships to the social, political, as well as in the academic circles. The relationship is clearly seen as those people who have better access to technology are likely to have more prepared in thriving the new technology; this is known as the Information Age.

Digital Divide

Defining Digital Divide

Digital divide is defined as the separation of those people and communities who have the access to the information technology and those people who do not. So, it is where there is a gap between those two divisions (Kuttan & Peters 2003). As cited in Kuttan & Peters (2003:3), President George W. Bush stated that the digital divide is also known as the digital opportunity as he perceives that this problem creates an �achievement gap’. It is also illustrated that the minute that the technology is innovated and comes to the market, it creates more divide unless every part of society is all distributed by those new innovation.

For those society who have difficulty to get access to technology, which is also known as the �have-nots’ are more likely to left behind with those with access, which is known as the �haves’; this situation structures the �information underclass’ (Kuttan & Peters 2003:4). Stated by Evans (2004:11), �In this world, which is ordered according to who has information and who is able to use it to effect change’. The information and the technology changes are perceived as the �social levellers’.

History of Digital Divide

The digital divide has been existed since long time ago, but the term of �digital divide’ was discovered by the US government in 1995. The National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) had a report titled “The Falling through the Net” which showed the data of numbers of people in America who have access to the information technology, and those who do not (Servon 2002:2). Kuttan & Peters (2003:4) stated that the report showed that there has been a big gap which is created by those people who live with a more educated, higher income, and live in urban areas, with those who have less educated and lower income.

Digital Divide as a Crisis

There has been a debate from the actual importance of the digital divide. The controversies have arisen in debating that digital divide is a reasonable crisis or it is just the problem which has been exaggerated by the media society (Kuttan and Peters 2003:8).

As it has been illustrated earlier, the gap and the separation between the �info rich’ and �info poor’