The Digital Divide: Implications for Global Civil Society

1
The Digital Divide Implications for
Global Civil Society
2
Overview

• Defining civil society
• Role of civil society in contemporary
  nation-states
• The cyber paradigms and the Digital Divide
• ICTs and global civil society

3
Central Questions in Global Civil Society

• Do contextual factors determine how civil society
  organisations function within nation-states?
• Is there still a Digital Divide between advanced
  industrialised and developmental nation-states?
• Can Information and Communication Technologies
  foster a truly global civil society?

4
Defining Civil Society Schmitter

• a system of self-organised intermediary groups
  that are
• relatively independent of both public
  authorities and private units of production and
  reproduction,
• are capable of deliberating about and taking
  collective actions in defence/promotion of their
  interests or passion,
• but do not seek to replace either state agents
  or private producers or to accept responsibility
  for governing the polity as a whole,
• but do agree to act within pre-established rules
  of a civil or legal nature.

5
Alternative Definitions of Civil Society

• a sphere of social interaction distinct from
  economy and the state comprised above all of
  associations (including family) and public
  (Cohen, 1995 37).
• multiple organisations buffering between
  citizens and the state, including parties, news
  media, traditional interest groups, professional
  associations (Norris, 2000171).
• public space between large-scale bureaucratic
  structures of state and economy on the one hand
  and the private sphere of family, personality and
  intimacy on the other (Nielsen, 1995 44).
• Q. Can civil society be created across multiple
  jurisdictions?

6
Role of civil society in contemporary
nation-states

• White (1995) asserts that civil society improves
  the quality of governance by
• Altering Balance of Power between state and
  society in favour of the latter
• Enforcing public morality, accountability of
  administrators
• Acting as a transmission belt between state and
  society
• Redefining the rules of the political
  game-processing disparate demands

7
Does the role of Civil Society in a nation-state
depend upon the political system?

• Semi-authoritarian/authoritarian regimes do not
  want an independent civil society to alter
  balance between state and state e.g. Soviet Union
  dissolved institutions of civil society in
  Eastern European satellite states and replaced
  normative order of each society with one of its
  own making (Rau, 1991 9).
• Civil society organisations can face censorship
  within Islamic Republics for being Western-style
  institutions e.g. Iran banned human rights
  groups group led by Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi
  in August 2006.
• In theory, civil society actors within liberal
  democracies should have autonomy from the state
  and provide an additional check on the exercise
  of government power.
• Democratic theorists stress civil society should
  consist of voluntary associations, free from
  state influence.
• Q. Do civil society actors need a nation-state to
  confront?

8
Three conceptions of how Information and
Communication Technologies may affect society

• Cyber-optimism
• Internet facilitates forms of communication,
  interaction and organisation that undermine
  unequal status and power relations (Spears R
  Lea, M (1994) Panacea or Panopticon,
  Communication Research, 21,4428)
• Cyber-pessimism
• Internet will reinforce inequalities of power
  and wealth
• Cyber-scepticism
• Potential of the Internet has yet to make a
  dramatic impact upon realties of politics as
  usual Norris, P (2001) Digital Divide13)

9
Cyberoptimists believe a global civil society
could

• strengthen the voice of the developing world,
  dissolving some of the boundaries of the
  nation-state, foster new types of mobilisation by
  transnational advocacy networks around the world
  Norris, P (2000) Digital Divide, p.8)
• Be a precondition for reducing poverty efforts
  to improve water supply, generate jobs etc all
  require access to digital networks
• Be a precondition for resolving
  terrorism-Castells suggests religious extremism
  is a rational self-protection response made by
  cultures left out of digital revolution. Also,
  some areas where terrorism is incubated e.g.
  rural Pakistan tend to be mired in poverty,with
  no access to digital networks

10

• The Digital Divide

11
The Digital Divide Background

• International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
  defines digital divide as the gap between those
  able to benefit from digital technology and those
  who are not (ITU, 2007)
• There was little empirical evidence in the late
  1990s to support either the cyberpessimist or
  cyber-optimist models
• Shift in research over past decade towards
  examination of who is actually helped by
  technology, as opposed to who has access to
  information technology

12
Evidence supporting the Digital Divide thesis in
2001?

• Global Internet use patterns- An estimated 54.3
  of population in United States used Internet
  regularly, compared to a mere 0.4 of population
  in sub-Saharan Africa
• Perceived US hegemony over institutions governing
  code layer of Internet e.g. ICANN
• English as vernacular of cyberspace- developing
  denied Fourth Generation Rights, namely the
  right to communicate and the right to
  information, as English was not their primary
  language

13
World Summit on the Information Society Geneva
2003- Tunis 2005

• Governments made commitment towards building
  people-centred, inclusive and development minded
  information society for all, where everone could
  access, utilise and share information and
  knowledge (ITU, 2006)
• Set targets to broaden Internet access and
  bridge the Digital Divide e.g. WSIS Geneva Plan
  of Action
• Calls for design of national e-strategies in
  accordance wth local and national development
  needs

14
The Digital Opportunity Index (DOI)

• Endorsed in WSIS Tunis Agenda (2005), updated in
  International Telecommunication Unions World
  Information Society Report
• DOI created to measure digital opportunity for
  180 economies
• Digital opportunity defined as the possibility
  for the citizens of a particular country to
  benefit from access to information that is
  universal, ubiquitous, equitable and affordable
  (WSIS Tunis, 2005)
• Eleven internationally agreed core ICT indicators
  in three categories

15
Structure of the Digital Opportunity Index (1)

• Opportunity measures the basic access and
  affordability needed to participate in
  Information Society, including mobile telephony,
  Internet access prices
• Percentage of population covered by mobile
  cellular telephony
• Internet access tariffs as a percentage of per
  capita income
• Mobile cellular tariffs as a percentage of per
  capita income

16
Structure of the Digital Opportunity Index (2)

• Infrastructure measures of different networks
  and devices used in Information Society
• Proportion of households with a fixed line
  computer
• Proportion of households with a computer
• Proportion of households with Internet access at
  home
• Mobile cellular subscribers per 100 inhabitants
• Mobile Internet subscribers per 100 inhabitants

17
Structure of the Digital Opportunity Index (3)

• Utilization How Internet users use ICTs
• Proportion of individuals that used the Internet
• Ratio of fixed broadband subscribers to total
  Internet subscribers
• Ratio of mobile broadband subscribers to total
  mobile subscribers
• Source International Telecommunication Union
  (2006) World Information Society Report 2006

18
Has the Digital Divide been reduced?

• DOI analysis suggests that Latin America and
  Central Asia are catching Europe and North
  America with large infrastructural investments,
  gains in mobile Internet access.
• Two Asian countries, Republic of Korea and Japan,
  top the DOI rankings.
• Developing countries are making strong gains in
  mobile telephony and Internet access,
  industrialised countries are forging ahead with
  3G mobile broadband technologies. Broadband being
  introduced into low income African countries e.g.
  Ghana (March 2005).

19
Internet Statistics January 2007

• Most Internet users per region - Asia (389
  million net users), while lowest is Middle East
  (19 million net users)
• Africa- population 933,448,292 (14.2 world
  population), 32,765,700 net users (3 of Internet
  users in world). However,this represented a
  635.8 growth in Internet consumption 2000-2007
• North America population 334,538,018 (5.1
  world population), 232,057,067 net users (21.1
  of total Internet users in world). This
  represented a 114.7 growth in Internet
  consumption 2000-2007
• Q. Has the nature of the Digital Divide altered?

20
Can ICTs foster a truly global civil society?

• Number of examples appear to support this
  hypothesis
• WTO Seattle protests (1999) 50,000 people
  mobilised from 500 groups to protest against
  trade negotiations. Email used to mobilise
  support for protestors
• Jubilee 2000 campaign to reduce debt burden on
  some of worlds poorest countries uses website
  and email to mobilise support
• Make Poverty History (2005)- brings together 150
  million people in 72 countries in opposition to
  G8 Summit in Gleneagles. 30 million text messages
  sent urging G8 leaders to act on poverty issue

21
Can ICTs foster a truly global civil society?

• Overstating the phenomenon? protests to prevent
  invasion of Iraq had little effect despite one
  million people marching in London, online
  mobilisation across the globe
• Analogy between civil society and global civil
  society presuppose that they play similar roles
  in very different settings- Global civil society
  arguably aspires to roles that domestic civil
  society does not claim- representation and
  intermediation
• State interest and power appears capable of
  overruling global civil society

22
Also, lack of consensus on concept of global
civil society

• Normative concept of global civil society? Kaldor
  (2003) suggests it is a progressive concept
  advancing universal values of social justice and
  human rights
• Structural concept of global civil society? Refer
  to all associations, excluding governments,
  private sector actors and families, that act
  transnationally
• Critics assert that global civil society is a
  Western-dominated concept, imposing European
  Enlightenment version of democracy and human
  rights elsewhere in a form of neo-colonialism. A
  value-laden term?

23
Central Questions in Global Civil Society

• Do contextual factors determine how civil society
  organisations function within nation-states?
• Is there still a Digital Divide between advanced
  industrialised and developmental nation-states?
• Can Information and Communication Technologies
  foster a truly global civil society?