Technology and Social Inclusion. Rethinking the Digital Divide

Citation

Audunson, R. (2006), "Technology and Social Inclusion. Rethinking the Digital Divide", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 62 No. 2, pp. 293-295. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410610653352

How can the digital divide be bridged and information literacy be promoted? That is a hot topic in today's society. Many believe that if we, for example, give every student in compulsory and secondary school a PC and access to broadband, which will trigger off learning processes. Policy reports tend to focus upon coverage: How many per cent of households have PCs, Internet access and broadband? What is the situation in the schools. Such a way of thinking is inflicted with what Mark Warschauer (Warschauer, 2003) term the fire model of technology. If ICT is implemented into a given context it will trigger off processes just as an object catches fire if it is warmed up. In his book Warschauer takes issue with deterministic and instrumental views of technology. Believing that ICT automatically triggers off (desired) processes (the deterministic perspective) or is a socially neutral instrument that can be implemented and used as we like – both these perspectives are naïve, according to Warschauer. Technology is socially embedded and any sound policy of implementing ICT, promoting use and fostering information literacy must take that social embeddedness as its point of departure.

 Warschauer has a background from ethnographic studies and case studies in Egypt, India, Hawai, California and Brazus. He starts out with two concrete examples from two widely different contexts two illustrate the need to mobilize social resources in order to use ICT effectively. In a slum area of India's capital New Dehli, computer kiosks were set up to give the slum dwellers access and offer a possibility for the children of the slum to learn about Internet at their own pace and speed and without having to pay with money they do not have. The results, however, were meagre. The children tended to use the computers for drawing and playing games, not for learning purposes. Warshauers second opening example is from Ireland – the digital wonderboy of the European Union. In 1997 a national competition was held to select an information age town. The winning city was given a huge amount of money to realize its projects, whereas three runner‐up cities were given much more modest sums. The winner invested the money in giving families and businesses access to PCs and Internet. Equipment was bought and installed. The runner‐ups, with fewer resources, to a far larger extent mobilised community organisations and inhabitants in order to get as much as possible out of the relatively meagre funds allotted to them. When researchers evaluated the results, the three runner‐ups scored much higher than the winner in terms of promoting social inclusion with technology. The book abounds with similar stories and reports.

Based on his own and other scientists research, Warschauer identifies four resource‐categories that are necessary in order to use and implement ICT effectively: Physical resources, i.e. access to hardware, software and internet, digital resources, i.e. relevant and understandable content, human resources and social resources. In Warschauer's model there is no hierarchy between these categories. In reality, however, there seems to be one based on the dominating influence of social conditions and the social context. It the chapter dealing with differences in access to information technology in developed as well as developing countries, Warschauer concludes that “three issues are foregrounded in any analysis of formal moves to ICT: affordability of computers, extension and affordability of telecommunications and the provision of public access centers”. All of these issues are highly social and political. When producers of computers and mobile phones find it more attractive to develop more refined equipment for the middle class market in Western countries when that market is saturated instead of producing affordable computers for developing countries, which is in essence rooted in the market economic rationality. If infrastructure in telecommunications is left to the market or taken care of by the public, have consequences for access. The presence of non‐presence of public access centres, e.g. libraries and other arenas, is also a social and political issue.

By extensive references to relevant research Warschauer shows convincingly that learning, also learning information literacy, is an essentially social process. It is not sufficient to give people a PC and broadband and believe that lifelong distance education will materialize. You have to offer them social support. And you have to offer them digital material that is relevant and understandable, i.e. decoupled from US and Western European middle class culture.

As said in the introduction, technology can been seen as external to society having determinate effects on social developments, it can be seen as a neutral instrument that can be used for good or bad and it can be seen as socially embedded, standing in a dialectical relationship to society. Social conditions have effects upon technology and technology, once unleashed, affects social conditions. Warschauer represents the latter perspective, and he does so in a very convincing and well written way. His arguments are framed within the so‐called new institutionalism that has been popular in social science for the last couple of decades.

Libraries are not mentioned frequently in Warschauers book, but his perspective is also an argument for the relevance of libraries as community based arenas that can offer literacy work exactly that social anchoring Warschauer points at the necessity of.

Although the book refers heavily to relevant research, it is easy – partly entertaining – to read. I believe this book is useful when discussing information literacy and policies to bridge the digital divide in general and it can, in particular, inform discussions about the role of libraries and librarians in that respect. This reviewer will most certainly consider having it on the reading list of a master course in information policy for which he is responsible.