van Dijk - The Digital Divide
van Dijk, J. (2020) The Digital Divide. Polity Press. ISBN 978-1-509-53444-9
In an increasingly digital world, we are confronted with new and reinforced inequalities, determined by access to the internet, engagement with digital media, and the skills to navigate the plethora of available digital devices, platforms, and services. These inequalities exclude and disadvantage large parts of contemporary societies. Scholarship has been exploring these ‘new’ forms of inequalities since the mid-1990s, resulting in the description of what is known as ‘the digital divide’. In this book, van Dijk addresses the relational character of digitalization and societal developments and shows that digital inequality reinforces pre-existing traditional inequalities.
The book serves as a theoretical and conceptual framework as well as empirical proof of the existence of ‘the digital divide’. It is important to discuss and understand it, because it shapes and restricts the way in which citizens can participate in contemporary and future societies. Although it focuses mainly on the digital divide in a general sense of the word and not on culture specifically, this work is an indispensable resource for scholars, students, and policymakers in the cultural field. Namely, it considers the state of digital inequality in detail and provides reflection and guidance on how to tackle it.
Jan van Dijk “The Digital Divide”