Interrogating information access: Quantitative and qualitative research on digital divides

These two texts present welcome reconsiderations of the digital divide, offering national, international, and locally focused theorizations of the concept. Where Taylor and Schejter present data-based approaches to national-scale information, policy theorization, and implementation, Straubhaar et al. critically examine the social and cultural implications of the digital divide in the southern US “technopolis” of Austin, Texas. While both texts provide strong analyses of the many facets inherent in the topoi of “digital divide,” the macro level approach of the former could benefit from additional contexualization of “information” and of local stakeholders, while the micro level approach of the latter could benefit from additional data on broadband access by poor Whites in the Austin metropolitan area. The digital divide is typically proposed as a lack of information and communication technology (ICT) access. The underlying warrant framing the digital divide as a “problem”—that information is a public good—positions information technology/ access as a resource that all must have but some “have-not.” This model casts the activities of digital “haves” as the reference standard for ICT activity, much in the same way that “Whiteness” often is the assumed “default identity” of Internet users. Selwyn (2004) argues that this is a deficit model of information use and access, one that neatly maps onto pre-existing cultural attitudes highlighting the deficiencies of non-elites. The deficit model promotes information as an instrumental good or as a commodity, arguing that material or market access to information technologies will improve the life chances for those who use them. 530089 NMS0010.1177/1461444814530089new media & society research-article2014