Essay on "New Media"

Essay 5 pages (1615 words) Sources: 6

[EXCERPT] . . . .

New media technologies have driven technological innovation and economic change in the past couple of decades. There are, however, costs associated with adopting new media in the form of both capital and time. Some people and some regions are better equipped and have more economic and intrinsic incentive to adopt new media technologies that others. The result of this is that a digital divide is created between those at the front of the innovation curve and those that lag in new media adoption.

With new media being a key driver of economic growth, the digital divide threatens to leave behind those groups not able to participate in new media. This includes older workers, the poor and people in emerging economies. Differences in both income and education level -- two factors already correlated -- are also believed to be drivers of the digital divide. Hoffman et al. (2000) found that African-Americans, with lower levels of Internet access than whites, may be suffering from the digital divide.

Within our society, levels of education and income are key determinants of Internet access. It has been argued, however, that the digital divide is not a binary split between those with and those without but a gradation dependent on the degree of access (Warschauer, 2004). In the United States, almost everybody has some access to the Internet, even if only through public school or library. Thus, how much access becomes part of the equation. Moreover, what type of access is also relevant. In India, Internet kiosks were provided to poor neighborhoods. Without proper supervision and guidance, they were used by children to play video games, to the detriment of their education rather than to their benefit (Warschauer, 2004).

Despite the risks of negative outcomes on members of society created by the digital divide, there is reason for optimism. New media has become ubiquitous since the concept of the digital divide emerged ten-year ago. Policymakers and market forces have reduced the gaps and allowed for more positive outcomes in recent years. Social networking, for example, is readily accessed and has bridged gaps in the ability of disadvantage youth to create large, heterogeneous networks that result in greater social capital, a determinant of economic success (Steinfeld, Ellison & Lampe, 2008).

Servon and Nelson (2001) proposed that community technology centers would help to lower the digital divide in impoverished urban communities. This would not be a full-scale solution to the digital divide for two reasons however. The first is that the degree of access issue is not addressed, merely the availability of access. The centers are a good first step, but the free market is also bridging the digital divide with $400 laptops and competitively-priced Internet service. Servon and Nelson also do not address methods of reaching the rural poor. In areas that do not have the critical population mass to effectively implement technology centers, the digital divide is promised to continue to grow, without a meaningful policy solution. Thus, the digital divide is likely to continue to grow, until the point where Internet access is as necessary to life a car, telephone or television, at which point the divide would only affect the most truly destitute Americans and become more manageable due to its small affected population.

2. Likewise, industrialized societies have far greater access to the Internet than developing societies. While the former are developing rich applications for technology that have resulted in high levels of information freedom, the latter are facing a growing information deficit. The World Bank highlighted the risk that the issues on an individual level can be extrapolated to the country level, with lower income nations either having insufficient access to information technology or making poor use of what they do have (Dasgupta, Lall & Wheeler, 2005.). The World Bank prescribed a model of rapid wireless diffusion to overcome the physical landline infrastructure problems combined with policy reform to promote Internet access, on the assumption that wider distribution of information technology would lead to better uses of that technology, as it has in the West.

In terms of policy prescriptions, democracy, competitive markets and privatization are highly correlated with Internet diffusion (Guillen & Saurez, 2005). These features are also highly correlated with economic wealth, which illustrates the fundamental point of the digital divide on the global scale. Wealth is correlated with specific outlooks, in particular democracy and capitalism. Restrictive political regimes discourage innovation and investment; publicly run telecoms are less innovative than privately-owned telecoms that operate in a competitive environment. If the digital divide is to be erased, the antecedents to the divide must be addressed.

It is insufficient to prescribe greater cheaper computers for poor nations or Internet access subsidized by wealthier nations. The sheer size of the developing world makes such solutions impractical under ideal situations, but without the antecedents of economic development, the technology will not be put to its best use. Chinn and Farlie (2006) identified that improving telecommunications and regulatory infrastructures could mitigate the gap in Internet use in developing markets.

Arguably, regulatory considerations are most important. The information economy is moving to a wireless platform in the West, particularly with the development of wireless broadband and more sophisticated application devices in the past couple of years. The diffusion of wireless broadband in the developing world could serve the same purpose as the diffusion of cell phones has in bridging the telecommunications gap. In the developing world, it was physical infrastructure that had created the telecommunications gap -- phone lines were limited and of variable quality, which reduced their diffusion. Cell phones overcame that gap such that in all but the poorest countries everybody in the world has access to a phone, even if only a prepaid phone. Indeed, the prepaid model, which was pioneered in the developing world by Telmex/America Movil, provided a means for the world's poor to bypass shoddy landline infrastructure and enjoy the same communications enjoyed by people in the developed world. Other successful models have included competition in telecommunications financed by microcredit, a model that has worked well in a number of developing countries around the world (Dasgupta, Lall & Wheeler, 2005).

It is important for us to understand the impact of these new technologies. Growth in the global economy has been dependent on nations building new economic wealth and joining the ranks of developed nations. These countries then provide new markets for goods and they provide new innovation and products that drive the advanced of the global economy even further. At this point, when nations are left behind, they are often left behind at a pre-industrial stage. The amount of work that needs to be done to bring such nations up to pace with the developed world becomes that much greater and the investment that much more. Only by understanding the impact of these new technologies can we motivate the policymakers in these nations to address the underlying causes of their poor performance in the information economy.

In the next five years, the information divide will widen. Broadband wireless will become diffused widely across the developed world. This will result in increased information among members of those societies. These benefits will diffuse even to poorer communities, in particular as the cost of devices continues to drop. This will lend the developed world even more momentum in increased the usage and value of new media.

The developing world, however, will not see these benefits within the next five years. The same underlying causes of the digital divide in these nations will undermine efforts to bring broadband wireless and affordable devices to these nations. A lack of competition and strict regulation in telecommunications will slow the pace of innovation and the price-lowering impacts of competition. It will be difficult, therefore, for these countries to move quickly enough to bridge the digital divide over… READ MORE

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