polity
Copyright © Jan van Dijk 2020
The right of Jan van Dijk to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2020 by Polity Press
Polity Press
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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
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Medford, MA 02155, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3446-3
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dijk, Jan van, 1952- author.
Title: The digital divide / Jan van Dijk.
Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Contrary to optimistic visions of a free internet for all, the problem of the ‘digital divide’ has persisted for close to twenty-five years. Jan van Dijk considers the state of digital inequality and what we can do to tackle it”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019023991 (print) | LCCN 2019023992 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509534449 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509534456 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509534463 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Digital divide. | Computer literacy. | Internet literacy. | Equality.
Classification: LCC HM851 .D56 2019 (print) | LCC HM851 (ebook) | DDC 303.48/33--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023991
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023992
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This book is a result of twenty-five years of research on the digital divide by me and others. Fifteen years ago I summarized my first thoughts about this topic in The Deepening Divide: Inequality in the Information Society (2005). At first sight this book looks similar. In fact, it is quite different, because here the assumptions of the former volume are tested in a large number of surveys, experiments and analyses of official statistics. The resources and appropriation theory I sketched previously has matured and is elaborated here. This book covers not only the so-called first-level digital divide research of that time (concerning physical access) but also the second level (digital skills and usage) and the third level (the outcomes of using or not using digital media). However, the inconvenient message is new: that digital inequality reinforces existing social inequality.
The framework of The Digital Divide is broad enough to summarize not only my own work and that of my staff since 2005 but also that of others. This is the first textbook on the digital divide aimed at those in higher education, especially in the social sciences and media courses covering the social aspects of digital media, and the numerous figures, tables and lists render the results accessible to all.
I am very grateful to those who have read earlier drafts and made useful comments, in particular Professor Alexander van Deursen, with whom I have collaborated on several articles and a book on digital skills. I am also indebted to the reviewers at Polity Press for their suggestions.
Finally, I want to thank my wife Ineke for her patience, support and love while her now officially retired husband ‘is working harder than ever before’.