THE CONCEPT OF DIGITAL DIVIDE

By Hugho Deogratius

The global digital divide refers to the unequal distribution of information and communication technology across nations and it is a concept which has become a common political problem, which usually fails to capture all the dimensions of the divide. In other words this is a gap between who have access to digital devices and those who have no access. However, in academic circles in the same vein as the democratic divide, it is well established that the digital divide encompasses more than physical access to information and communication technologies (ICTs). Scholars agree that the global digital divide is also a question of how ICTs are used. Traditionally discourse addressing the global digital divide is constructed on arguments such as economic integration, access to education and healthcare information.

This means that policy makers and international development organizations should take the understanding of ICTs further, by considering the capacity of internet, social media and mobile phones to empower individual in developing nations to express their grievances, which in many cases means making known human rights abuses that they suffer in their nations.

Closing the digital divide could prove to be beneficial for human rights organizations worldwide. As a matter of fact, scholars have observed that human rights NGO’s are some of the main beneficiaries of the ongoing discourse regarding of the divide. As Metzl (1996) point out, accurate and timely information is an indispensable tool and an essential precondition for effective responsive action and the promotion of human rights. Moreover, human rights NGO’s take advantage not only of the ease of communication and information dissemination, but also of the fact that for the state it is difficult to supervise the internet.

Our current network society is a product of a digital revolution and some major socio-cultural changes. Hence there is a gap because there some other people who cannot access internet and digital devices. But individuation of this digital divide does not mean isolation, or the end of other community out of network community. Instead, social relationships are being reconstructed on the basis of individual interests, value and projects.

The virtual life that is using of digital devices and internet is becoming more social that physical life, but it is less a virtual reality than a real virtual life, facilitating real life work and urban living. Information and communication technologies are particularly sensitive to the effects of social; uses on technology itself