Reddick, Andy

The Digital Divide, Individuals and Governance: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

The Digital Divide, Individuals and Governance: Opportunities and Challenges Andrew Reddick Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada Ph.D. Student, Carleton University Over the past several years, the Internet has joined the core basket of communication services necessary for full participation in society. At the same time, a number of tensions have emerged relating to how the Internet is being developed, who has access and how it being used by the public. A complex digital divide has developed in Canada. The digital divide issue encompasses the ability of individuals, social organizations, businesses and communities to effectively respond to changes in an information society and participate successfully in economic, social and citizenship relations. A social, economic, citizenship and cultural needs-based, as opposed to a technological approach, helps focus on understanding digital divide issues and possible roles for the state and others in pursuing different options to address these. While the digital divide will not be closed, there are roles for government and other organizations to ameliorate problems relating to on-line access and social information/resource content development. A number of these are relevant to issues of social cohesion, social participation and social policy objectives. These include: content and services to balance collective information resources with individual or consumerist resources; complementing as opposed to displacing traditional social goods activities (e.g., literacy, learning); role of community and national NGO intermediaries in the provision of public goods resources and social cohesion opportunities; and innovative regulatory approaches which may be required to achieve social policy objectives as the Internet emerges from its developmental phase.