Understanding the digital divide: A literature survey and ways forward

The term digital divide was introduced in the mid-1990s and defined as the gap separating those who have access to new forms of information technology from those who do not. The digital divide remains an important public policy debate that encompasses social, economic and political issues. This paper presents a literature review and classification scheme for digital divide research. The review covers journal articles published between 2001 and 2010 in three types of journals: (1) Information technology & information systems, (2) Economics and business & management and (3) Social science. A classification of digital divide literature and a comprehensive list of references are provided. The results show that the digital divide is a multifaceted phenomenon, due to the many dimensions of determinant factors. Recent studies have included socio-economic, institutional and physiological factors in order to gain a greater understanding of the digital divide. Among other findings, they show that technological determinism is not sufficient to explain the emergence of the digital divide. Moreover, several types of technologies were investigated, both from empirical and conceptual standpoints. The Internet is the most commonly studied technology. The divide in access and usage are discussed at the global, social and democratic levels by employing a quantitative method, either a survey or data analysis, as the main method. However, there is less discussion in developing countries and at the level of the organization (i.e. SMEs, the private sector and the public sector). The qualitative research method could be seen as a complementary method to fill the gap in the current research. The choice of policies which have been recommended to the policy maker and national regulatory agency (NRA) are also presented and discussed at the end of this paper. Several initiatives made at the country and regional levels and by international organizations have also attempted to create a combined policy. This may suggest that the combined policy is the current trend among digital divide policies. Therefore, there is a need for future research to examine these determinants through the context of global, social and democratic divides. The results would provide some insight into how diverse people in different areas adopt ICTs. --Digital divide,Literature review,Future research

Judging the Law of Politics

In this Review Essay I explore the rights-structure debate that has captivated the attention of election law scholars. The Essay juxtaposes the recent work of a leading individualist Professor Richard Hasen\u27s new book, The Supreme Court and Election Law, against the recent work of a leading structuralist, Professor Richard Pildes\u27 recent Foreword to the Harvard Law Review. I argue that even though the rights-structure debate produces much heat, it does not significantly advance the goal of understanding and evaluating the role of the Court in democratic politics. I aim to return election law to a dualistic understanding of the relationship between rights and structure, an understanding that prevailed in the early articulation of structuralism\u27s relevance to judicial review of democratic politics. I shall argue that election law cases cannot be divided into neat categories along the individual rights and structuralism divide. Election law cases raise both issues of individual and structural rights. Therefore, the label attached to election law claims is immaterial. The fundamental questions are what are the values that judicial review ought to vindicate and how best to vindicate those values. These are questions that transcend the rights-structure divide

Internet freedom for all: public libraries have to get serious about tackling the digital privacy divide

Democratic engagement depends on critique and dialogue. Ian Clark looks at emerging issues related to digital literacy, online privacy and surveillance. Not only is a security divide emerging between those with digital knowledge and skills to protect themselves and those without, but also an intellectual privacy divide. There is scope for public libraries in the UK to teach the skills people need to ensure they can use the internet securely and privately, enabling wider engagement in the democratic process

KEGAGALAN KETERLIBATAN POLITIK: DARI KESENJANGAN DIGITAL MENUJU KESENJANGAN DEMOKRASI

Almost all political scholars have proven that Facebook has an important role in seizing the public’s political engagement in political campaign agenda. However, the differences in voter segmentation and the internet capacity do not make all cases are all the same phenomenon. This study used a mixed research method to find out the Facebook's role in shaping the online political engagement from the Bantul community to the official accounts of candidates in Bantul Local Election 2020 for Bantul regency. The result of this research led to a conclusion that there was a digital divide that resulting in the democratic divide in the Bantul Regency. This democratic divide caused the lack of understanding of the local community towards the issue raised by the candidates. Furthermore, all the political candidates in the Bantul regency that competed in the local election 2020 had used symbolic issues for their political campaign agenda in this election such as religion-tolerance and other cultural-social issues.

Project Fear: how the negativity of the referendum campaign undermines democracy

The referendum debate is not living up to its democratic ideals. Both sides of the divide have focused heavily on negative, fear-based arguments to make their case, which prevent democratic engagement among the electorate. Charlotte Galpin shows how this negativity is inhibiting critical reflection and fostering cynicism. She also notes that the debate is non-inclusive, with an striking absence of minorities and female experts in the campaign

Dewey, Democracy and Education and the school curriculum

This paper will investigate Dewey’s Democracy and Educationin relation to the curriculum. There are two overarching themes to the paper: the concept of the democratic curriculum and the academic/vocational divide. Dewey is seen as a pivotal thinker in relation to collaborative learning and the child as a vital voice in any learning that takes place in the classroom and beyond. The paper explores whether issues such as school governance and pupil voice facilitate Dewey’s notion of democratic education. Alongide this is the issue of the academic/vocational divide within English education. Acknowledgement will be made of Dewey’s theory of knowledge which emphasises the connection between concept and application and how this can influence the incorporation of the theoretical and the practical as part of children’s learning in a given curriculum

Collaborating across the researcher-practitioner divide: introducing John Dewey's democratic experimentalism

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to bridging the gap between researchers and practitioners. It does so by comparing the various models of academic-practitioner collaboration and introducing Dewey’s democratic experimentalism as a promising alternative. Design/methodology/approach The conceptual implications are drawn from an analysis and discussion of the literatures in the field of organizational knowledge production, co-production and Deweyan studies. Findings Democratic experimentalism offers a much needed platform for a collaborative relationship between academics and practitioners that leads to knowledge that is rigorous and relevant to practice. Originality/value While the current models of academic-practitioner collaboration provide mechanisms for knowledge co-production, the Dewey’s democratic experimentalism goes further to emphasize the nature of the relationship between academics and practitioners in such common endeavor to ensure that all of them are equal co-creators of knowledge

Defaming Muhammad: Dignity, Harm, and Incitement to Religious Hatred

The Danish cartoons controversy has generated a torrent of commentary seeking to define and defend competing conceptions of the normative implications of the affair. This Article addresses the question of how liberal democratic states ought to respond to visible manifestations of hatred, especially speech that constitutes incitement to religious hatred. Taking the publication of the Danish cartoons as its point of departure, the Article interrogates the complex historical and normative relationship between free speech and freedom of religion in the liberal democratic order and discusses the two critical questions of whether the cartoons give rise to a genuine conflict of rights and how we should understand the notion of harm. An argument is advanced which intervenes in the extant literature by suggesting two dialectical moves, each premised on the distinction between internal and external reasons in philosophical argument, which have the capacity to unsettle the static secular-religious binary and purportedly incommensurable divide between liberal and Islamic values. The Article concludes by asking what a more robust, reflexive account of toleration might look like premised on notions of mutual justification and peaceful coexistence between rival ways of life and on recognition of the need to pay close attention to how legal restrictions seem from the internal point of view of a religious tradition