Richard MacManus had a sobering post on Monday about global internet penetration levels and just how big the “digital divide” is between North and South (one of the many political science phrases used to distinguish the developed and developing worlds). He quotes statistics from the Miniwatts Marketing Group’s Internet Usage and World Population Statistics which state that internet penetration in Africa is just 2.6%, Asia 9.9% and the Middle East 9.6% (North America, on the other hand, has 68.6% penetration).
One of the commenters on Read/WriteWeb pointed out that only 50% of the world has ever made a phone call, much less gone online — a statistic that I remember from my graduate program in Global Media Studies at Goldsmiths College.
Services such as Harvard Berkman Center’s Global Voices project, which aims to bring the voice of the blogger and journalist in under-represented areas of the world to a global online audience, are a wonderful use of the web as an awareness generation tool. But I’m also interested in knowing about organizations that are working to overcome the digital divide in terms of basic web infrastructure and equipment by helping create libraries with internet access and providing computer services to classrooms. If anyone is aware of any such services, please let me know in the comments below.
Technorati tags: readwriteweb, digitaldivide, globalvoices, berkman
June 12, 2006 at 4:15 pm |
I admire the Global Voices project and being that I speak as well as read and write Spanish it has led me to many great blogs that come out of Mexico, Latin America and Spain.
However, in looking at the profiles of the bloggers I get a sense that most of them are individuals come from middle and upper incomes levels. Many of the most interesting blogs come from individuals who work within media, internet or advertisement related businesses.
Unfortunately, the Digital Divide issue has not been an issue posted about in Mexico and Latin America. Maybe it has to do with the Presidential elections in Mexico or the World Cup, but sadly I don’t get a sense that the issue of the Digital Divide is much in the minds of internet users south of the border. I hope I’m wrong and I come accross data that reflects that the Digital Divide is indeed being narrowed.
I have not come accross any organizations that are presently working in Mexico and Latin America concerning the Digital Divide, but would love to see one work on this issue.
I’ve worked with some Hometown community organizations that work to build schools, clinics and roads in rural towns of Mexico. These groups have shown an interest in setting up some of the basic web infrastructure you indicate in your post.
We have spoken to the Director of Economic Development in the State of Jalisco (Guadalajara) and the Governors office took interest in this, but their office will not take another look at this until after the July elections.
If this is an area of interest to you send me an email. I would love to talk to you about this, get your prespective and be happy to share my info with you.