6-16-09, 9:12 am
Few deny that the United States is now firmly in the information age.
We are in a period defined by exponentially expanding technological development and the primacy of information. Email, the World Wide Web, digital cable, GPS, and satellites are all part of the global explosion in new information technology that is changing all of our lives forever.
Information has not just revolutionized communications and entertainment but also revolutionized the production process, distribution and transportation, commerce and even social interaction. The information age is also changing politics as evidenced by the innovations employed by the Obama campaign on the road to the White House.
But some ask, “Who is being left out of the information revolution? Are the tools of email, Internet and text messaging limited by the uneven development of the technological infrastructure?”
There is certainly a digital divide in the United States. Race, economics, age and geography are all factors that determine Internet access. But there are differing indicators of access and every year millions more people go online.
How to measure the divide
On problem of measuring the problem is that many times when people speak of the “digital divide” they are comparing apples and oranges.
One way to measure digital access is to measure access to “broadband” Internet availability. Broadband access is the benchmark for Internet access. Broadband access means access to a robust and speedy connection sufficient to utilize the cutting edge technology of the day. But we should not mistake lack of broadband access with lack of Internet use.
There is currently a significant gap in broadband access between young and old, rich and poor, rural and urban. Over two-thirds of US households have broadband access as of May 2009 according to the Leichtman Research Group. But only 37 percent of households with income under $30,000 have broadband access compared to 89 percent of households with over $75,000 annual income according to the same study.
But if you look at numbers on use of the Internet, the gap drops significantly. Many young people for instance access the Internet by cell phone, or at public libraries, schools, etc. Many people also access email and the Internet at work. That is why despite the gap in home broadband access, the percentages of Internet use are much closer together. According to research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 57 percent of people with household income under $30,000 use the Internet regularly compared to 94 percent of those earning more than $75,000. In other words a majority of all Americans are getting online whether they have broadband access at home or not.
The racial gap in Internet use also shifts depending on how you ask the question. For instance: 54.9 percent of white non-Hispanic households have broadband access compared to 35.2 percent of Hispanic households, whereas 75.1 percent of whites have some Internet access at any location compared to 54.8 percent of Hispanics according to U.S. Census Current Population Study for 2007. And Pew’s numbers on Internet use from 2008 show 58 percent of Hispanics and 77 percent of whites are getting online on a regular basis.
When looking at the political use of the Internet the gap disappears. According to a Spring 2008 report by Pew, 43 percent of Hispanics went online to get information about the 2008 Presidential race compared to just 40 percent of Whites and 40 percent of Blacks. The report further found “a record-breaking 46 percent of Americans have used the internet, email or cell phone text messaging to get news about the campaign, share their views and mobilize others.” These numbers grew as the campaign progressed. The Internet as a political tool is here to stay.
Digital divide often matches other gaps
The digital divide is real and closing the gap will increasingly become a demand of mass movements struggling for equality, economic development and educational access. But the digital divide mirrors deeper systemic inequalities. Digital technology does not create the gap; it is capitalism itself, regressive social policy, privatization and general underdevelopment (and uneven development) that create the digital divide.
It is no accident or surprise that low-income people have less Internet access than the rich. The same is true for rural America. What is often overlooked is that these gaps also exist in newspaper readership, educational access, general literacy and job opportunities as well. The digital gap is created by the private monopolistic control of the “onramps” to the Internet, a resource that is otherwise free to use. It is created by the lack of physical telecommunications infrastructure because of corporate redlining and lack of sufficient government regulation.
As we showed before, only 35.2 percent of Latinos and 54.9 percent of whites have home Internet access, but newspaper readership rates for the same households have a similar gap: Only 32 percent of Hispanics read a Sunday newspaper and 29 percent read a daily newspaper compared to 52 percent and 47 percent respectively for whites according to the State of News Media 2009. Yes, that’s right, the Internet access numbers surpass newspaper readership for both whites and Latinos. It should also be noted that newspaper readership continues to decline across all sectors, while Internet use climbs.
Today, most Americans receive political information, like it or not, from Cable news not newspapers or the Internet. Reading, whether online or on paper, is a shrinking pastime. Most Americans like their information in audio and/or video. We have become a passive society in many ways.
But television aside, for the first time, in 2008 more Americans went online regularly than read newspapers daily or listened to broadcast radio. According to a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 37 percent of respondents said they went online three or four times a week for news as compared to listened to the radio (35 percent) or read a newspaper (34 percent). The Internet as a source for the news will likely increase with the collapse of daily newspapers around the country and the increasing expense – or complete lack – of home delivery.
Why Internet access is a bread and butter issue
Internet access may seem like a luxury in a time of global economic crisis, spreading unemployment and systemic poverty in many working-class communities in the US. But access to the Internet and other communications technologies are increasingly vital to everyday life; crucial to economic and social functioning in the 21st Century.
Young people today without Internet access in school, libraries or at home are less likely to learn the important skills needed to gain access to competitive colleges or acquire well-paying jobs of the future. Perhaps the greatest innovation of digital communications technology is that it is a two-way medium. New information technologies are not just for receiving information like radio, television and print technology, but creates ability for anyone to freely or inexpensively create spread their own ideas and opinions. The Internet and other digital technologies have the potential to push back the trend of passive media and engage the public in social and political dialogue again.
A democratic revolution is occurring on-line and we need to participate in it while fighting for equal access to it.
Many in the US are now calling for universal access to the Internet. A Zogby poll in June 2009 reported that 44 percent of Americans said that, “the federal government should guarantee universal Internet access to all Americans, and 20 percent said they believe Washington should provide personal computers to those who do not have one so they can access the Internet.”
Advocacy organizations such as Free Press have called for radical reform to US telecommunications policy that would increase broadband access. At the recent Free Press Summit in Washington, DC many participants voiced support for making universal broadband Internet access a basic right guaranteed by the government. Currently the Federal Communications Commission is accepting public input on their broadband plan due to be released in early in 2010. It is important for everyone to voice their support for universal broadband access for all. The new administration in Washington has opened the door to progressive reform of US policy toward the Internet and all telecommunications, but it is up to the democratic movements to enter the door.
Digital divide and the global class struggle
The biggest digital divide is in fact between the industrialized countries and Global South. The United Nations and the International Telecommunications Union have warned that the current gap in Internet and telephony access will deepen the existing underdevelopment and poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Overcoming this uneven development has become a global demand.
China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela and other socialist and national democratic countries have identified the emerging communication technologies as key priorities for national development. Cuba, which has been limited to expensive and inconsistent satellite Internet access due to the U.S. economic blockade, has entered into a project with Venezuela to lay a telecommunications cable between the two countries under the Caribbean ocean to expand Cuba’s entry into the digital world. The project is due to finish in 2010.
As the world become more interconnected technologically and economically, the unevenness of access to the new communication technologies will increasingly become a site of the class struggle internationally and at home. It is up to the progressive movements to help bridge the digital divide, all the while employing cutting edge technology to reach a broader audience.
--Libero Della Piana is the Communications Director of the Communist Party USA.
