Class notes

The Digital Divide

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Course
POLI 3546 Social Media and Politics

Institution
Dalhousie University (Dal )

This document speaks to the breakdown of digitization in the political sphere. The impacts of internet polling and social media usage in a ever growing climate digital age. It looks at the differing digital divides from the first to third with an entire breakdown of each. As well as how the dispari...

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Uploaded on September 22, 2021
Number of pages 6
Written in 2021/2022
Type Class notes
Professor(s) Scott pruysers
Contains All classes

political science
politics
internet voting
social media
first level divide
second level divide
computer literacy
metadata
communication
polarization
governments
elections

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21st September 2021
Fall Semester
POLI 3546 Social Media and Politics
Professor Scott Pruysers
Week three

Week 3: The Digital Divide Readings

● Small, Tamara, Harold Jansen, Frederick Bastien, Thierry Giasson, and online
Political Activity in Canada: The Hype and the Facts.”Canadian Parliamentary
Review 37(4):9-16.

● Goodman, Nicole, Michael McGregor, Jerome Couture, and Sandra Breux. 2018.
“Another Digital Divide? Evidence that Elimination of Paper Voting Could Lead to
Digital Disenfranchisement.” Policy and Internet 10: 164-184.

● Seong Jae Min. 2010.“From the Digital Divide to the Democratic Divide: Internet
Skills,Political Interest, and the Second Level Digital Divide in Political Internet
Use.”Journal of Information Technology & Politics 7(1): 22 35. Royce Koop. 2014.

The Digital Divide

● Digital Divide: Uneven access to information and communication technologies (ICT)
- Most Commonly the internet
● Divide occurs at the individual level
- Example :Older individuals less likely to have internet
● Divide occurs at the country or continental level
- Example Europe has a greater internet penetration than Africa
● Debate
- Many suggest that the digital divide will fade away with time - see adoption of Tv
and Radio. Eventually everyone gets access
- Others will argue that the digital divide will not disappear. It is argued that the
current internet access the divide will persist in the form of usage divides

The Second Level Divide

● Scholars were initially concerned about access to the internet
- Access to the intent around world
- Access is considered the first level of the digital divide

● A second level digital dived is now a more primary concern for scholars of ICT
- Second level focuses on usage, understanding and knowledge on the internet

, - The second level divide focuses on digital literacy and skills

The OECD (2001) Defines the digital divide as “ the gap between individuals, households,
business and geographic areas at different socioeconomic levels in regards both to their
opportunities to access information and communication technologies and to their use of the
internet for a wide variety of activities.

Deursin et all (2016) have distinguished between four types of skills

1. Operational skills
2. Informational skills
3. Social Skills
4. Creative skills

Third Level Divide

● Emerging literature on a third level divide
- Unlike the first and second levels of the digital divide, which concern the access
and the use of ICT, the third level refers to the differences in the ability to
mobilize digital resources to achieve specific objectives.
- In other words , even if the users have the same level of equipment and
adequate skills, they may not get the same returns from internet use

● Individuals who use the internet more intensively

- Increase labour incomes
- Benefits from a digital consumer dividend
- Communication skills meeting new people

Not Just about access but also about internet speed

● More recently access is not an issue but actual internet speed of the internet is
- SPEED is now a more common barrier in some places
● Less then a decade ago, Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications
Commissions (CRTC) and governments across canada were targeting universal
broadband coverage at download speeds of 5 megabits per second (MPS) and upload
speeds of 1 (Mps )

Digital DIvide

- Overall we can see a clear evidence of a first level digital divide in terms of access as
well as a second level in terms of usage
- A variety of factors shape the divide sucj as ( Age, Education, Sex)

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