Commentary

 

 

Some Observations About Digital Divide

Kenneth L. Hacker, New Mexico State University

If there were no benefits to Internet communication, there might be little concern for the digital divide among communication scientists. If the benefits are only luxuries, then the Bush administration might be justified in equating the digital divide to a “Mercedes divide.” Perhaps if the gaps constituting the divide are now all closed or closing, there might be little left (on this subject) to study and debate. In my view, particularly after attending numerous panels at ICA about the divide, all of these possible assumptions are false.

The May 2001 ICA conference in Washington, D.C., this year featured many scholars presenting research that revealed differing assumptions and conclusions about the digital divide. One expert announced that the divide is closed or closing. A second suggested a reverse divide as he laughed at the fact that certain ethnic minority groups have more cell phones than European Americans. Because I work at a minority university and endorse anti-racism, I was unable to appreciate his sense of humor. Fortunately, most of the others who discussed the digital divide recognized that it entails much more substantive issues than simple channel or device access.

As I observed communication scientists belittling the digital divide as a concept, I could not help but wonder if they were guiding their analysis by the political right. Other digital divide researchers, many of them graduate students, appeared to be more closely in touch with the detailed data gathered by the NTIA, RAND, GAO, Pew, and other sources. If one examines the digital divide data, it becomes apparent that there are no univariate answers to the multivariate phenomena involved in the issues.

For the most part, the digital divide panels at ICA were insightful and useful for communication scientists trying to sort out what divide issues need the most study. Two issues, however, appear to have been neglected. First, definitions of access did not receive much attention. This has always been a thorny issue in terms of validity and conceptual clarity. Second, there was a lack of explanation concerning why the gaps exist, why they open and close, and what they mean to human communication and in particular, to political communication.

More focus was needed on the political side of digital divide scholarship itself. The underlying politics may be latent, but they appear to have an impact, judging from the contradictory conclusions researchers are reaching about the same data sets. A Pew Research analyst noted that their survey indicated 47 percent of people using the Internet for on-line groups say they feel committed to those groups.

Spin 1. On-line groups are good for communication because people feel so good about them.

Now turn this on its head and you have 53 percent who must not feel committed to their groups.

Spin 2. On-line groups are a waste of time.

Those concerned about social inequalities in general (progressives, liberals, leftists) might look for new gaps to replace old gaps, in order to perpetuate attention on issues of economic, social, and political inequalities. Those who interpret knowledge gaps and information gaps as merely a reflection of natural economic differences in a free market (conservatives, libertarians, rightists) are likely to see the gaps as essentially closed or insignificant.

Most of us would agree that spinning has a better place in politics than in research, but some spinning may be occurring with some of the research concerning the digital divide. If so, we risk getting caught in a quagmire.
One alternative is to step back from the divide and use a more theoretical approach to the Internet and political communication. Gaps in political communication technologies are important for certain types of political information-seeking, knowledge acquisition, social interaction, and community building. We need to concentrate more on the actual and verifiable impacts of the divide gaps on political communication.

After attending the ICA sessions, I was convinced that we need to view multiple data sets on the digital divide and test competing hypotheses about the gaps and their consequences to political communication and political participation. We must be cautious in accepting simple observations about self-reported use of the Net for political information-seeking as evidence that citizens are using the Internet for meaningful political communication. The ICA panels led me to several realizations:

First, we need a rigorous and theoretical debate about the major components making up the overarching concept, “the digital divide.” This begins with the term “access” and moves into other concepts like “usage.” What precisely do people mean by the terms “social capital” and “cultural capital.” If these concepts cannot be measured (and not applied only in some poetic sense), they may not be as useful as they sound.

Second, the ethnic group gaps, despite the hype in various news media and oversimplified asssertions of some observers, have not closed and are not explained away by either income or education.

Third, there are important social, economic, and political consequences to sustained gaps in Internet communication.

Fourth, as Jim McConnaughey of NTIA noted, all ships are rising but some are rising faster than others. We need to explain what political consequences result from this inequality.

Political resources and government services are continuously increasing their Internet presence. Each time this occurs, those without Net access or those with low Internet communication skills get further behind, with fewer new political communication opportunities. The process suggests that the digital divide is becoming more, and not less, important as time goes on.

Political communication scholars have some strong contributions to make to the research being conducted about the digital divide. We can help to focus attention on government - citizen channels, political information resources, citizen groups, candidate Web sites, political networking possibilities, and new forms of political communication that might emerge for those with access, skills, experience, and support. More importantly, perhaps, we can help diminish another divide — a credibility divide in the past and current commentaries about how the Internet is affecting political communication.

Kenneth L. Hacker is associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces. He is co-editor of the recent book, Digital Democracy: Issues of Theory & Practice (Sage, 2000).