Digital Divide

Successful strategies and principles for using information technology to transform regional and community economies exist, and they are presented here with clarity and insight in a way that is useful to both practitioners and researchers. Although the communities discussed here range far and wide, from those in Russia to Australia and to Kenya, any community can benefit from enhanced utilization of information and communications technology.

Educating children in modern society requires skill and comfort with information technology. Gender and Computers: Understanding the Digital Divide presents evidence that shows that girls and young women are being left behind on the road to information technology. This book not only documents the digital divide-that is, the unequal opportunity and unequal attention that disenfranchises girls from the technological revolution-but also provides guideposts to overcoming it. Social psychological theories and data are brought to bear on understanding the societal and environmental roots of the divide. Remedies ranging from family dynamics to teacher-student interactions to the controversial question of the gender organization of schools and school systems are proposed. Gender and Computers: Understanding the Digital Divide: considers original research conducted by the authors especially for this volume, as well as recently published work by other leading scholars in information technology; documents that girls are at a marked disadvantage in their ability to learn about and profit from information technology in our educational system; sets the problem of computer anxiety in a rich context of social psychological theories, including stereotype threat, self-fulfilling prophecy, social comparison and attribution theory; and offers suggestions that parents, teachers, and school systems can implement to overcome the digital divide. The book is intended to appeal to students and researchers in the social and behavioral sciences, education, human factors, and computer science interested in gender differences in general, and in human computer interaction, in particular. The authors' goal is to stimulate social scientists and educators to further research this topic to generate solutions to the problem.

This title looks at the experience with the new economy in North America. It sets out the problems of measuring the effects of technological change on economic progress.

Globalization and Social Change takes a refreshing new perspective on globalization and widening social and spatial inequalities. It draws on ideas about the new economy, risk society, welfare regimes and political economy to explain the growing social and spatial divisions characteristic of our increasingly divided world.Combining original argument with a clear exposition of the underlying processes, the book illustrates it's points through a series of case studies linking people in rich and poor countries. Emphasis is placed on the socio-economic aspects of change, particularly changes in working patterns and living arrangements, and reference is made to the new global division of labour, declining industrial regions and widening social divisions within what the author terms superstar regions. Broad in scope, changing family structures, the feminization of employment, migration, work life balance and new conceptions of gender identity and gender roles, are all discussed.Diane Perrons' enlightening book concludes that divisions by social class and gender are in some ways becoming more significant than divisions between nations, and suggests that new systems of social end economic organization are necessary for social peace in the new millennium.

Innbsp;Media Access: Social and Psychological Dimensions of New Technology Use, editors Erik P. Bucy and John E. Newhagen present the latest work, theoretical explorations, and original research findings on media access from a team of internationally renowned media and technology researchers. Chapters develop expanded definitions and conceptual understandings of access to stimulate further research, offer new perspectives on policy discussions, and facilitate media participation among those at risk of being left behind. Broadening our understanding of information technology use, this collection offers: *Novel perspectives--chapters demonstrate new methods of addressing persistent questions regarding motivation, cultural context, socioeconomic resources, technical knowledge, and psychological skills required for effectual use of information and communication technologies. *Conceptual integration--each chapter addresses a vital aspect of media access and summarizes pertinent findings, weaving together results to provide much-needed integration across communication and technology studies. *Multidisciplinary approaches--chapters represent a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches, deriving social explanations from large-scale survey data, psychological explanations from experimental data, and cultural explanations from depth interviews and ethnographic methods. *Shifting the policy and research agenda--this volume extends and redirects aspects of the digital divide debate while elaborating the "media access" approach to studying new technology use. Taken as a whole, Media Access reveals complications associated with full access to new communication technologies and proposes analytical frameworks that open new avenues of scholarly investigation and policy consideration. It is intended for scholars and graduate students in journalism, mass communication, telecommunications, media studies, information science, public policy, psychology, sociology, informatics, human-computer interaction, and other disciplines concerned with the issue of media access.

Community Practice in the Network Society looks at how communities are using ICTs to create a more democratic society. The book presents case studies of local projects from around the world, and discusses community ICT research methodologies.

Online Communication provides an introduction to both the technologies of the Internet Age and their social implications. This innovative and timely textbook brings together current work in communication, political science, philosophy, popular culture, history, economics, and the humanities to present an examination of the theoretical and critical issues in the study of computer-mediated communication. Continuing the model of the best-selling first edition, authors Andrew F. Wood and Matthew J. Smith introduce computer-mediated communication (CMC) as a subject of academic research as well as a lens through which to examine contemporary trends in society. This second edition of Online Communication covers online identity, mediated relationships, virtual communities, electronic commerce, the digital divide, spaces of resistance, and other topics related to CMC. The text also examines how the Internet has affected contemporary culture and presents the critiques being made to those changes. Special features of the text include: *Hyperlinks--presenting greater detail on topics from the chapter *Ethical Ethical Inquiry--posing questions on the nature of human communication and conduct online *Online Communication and the Law--examining the legal ramifications of CMC issues Advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers interested in the field of computer-mediated communication, as well as those studying issues of technology and culture, will find Online Communication to be an insightful resource for studying the role of technology and mediated communication in today's society.