Differences Between Race And The Digital Divide

Digital media is one of the most rapidly expanding technologies of our age. When we as a society think of ‘technologies’, it’s usually synonymous to ‘improvement’. “[The] internet [has become] our medium of choice for storing, processing, and sharing information in all forums, including text” (Carr, The Shallows). While the internet does provide a plethora of information, it is only helpful to those who can fully access its potential. In the era of the computer, the digital divide in its simplest form is defined as gaps in rates of physical access to computer and internet technology. However, the digital divide is more than just a divide between social classes. The digital divide itself is just symptom of racism, and the racial digital divide

These advancements are often expensive and require plenty of time and effort to acquire and learn how to use. It is for these reasons that the people who are most likely to access people of higher education, elite status, specific gender and/or wealth. Throughout history, that has meant that the elite audience would predominantly be white males. According to an article called Race and the Digital Divide written by Robert W. Fairlie, “[blacks] are less likely to be employed in executive, administrative, managerial and professional occupations than whites” (Fairlie). An average black man like Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of Between the World and Me, would never be able to afford a luxury like the computer upon its introduction, seeing as how he due to systematic racism in place, black men are statistically less likely to hold these higher positions of wealth and

As access diffuses to parts of the public who were initially excluded” (DiMaggio). While more people have access to the technology, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the racism within it fades. Once there is a wider ability for more people to access the internet, it becomes more about the how they use it, what they use it for, and what they gain from it (Chen). The quality of use is used to describe how beneficial the experience of using computers and the internet is for the individual. It can be heavily influenced by how well one knows how to use the technology. The more someone knows how to use the internet and all it’s potential, the better. While black people may have the potential to use this technology, if they don’t have the know how or skill to use it, the internet and it’s infinite knowledge and tools become useless. This shifts us from the digital divide to the more complex and socio-economic issue that is digital inequality. The digital inequality and divide and their inherent racism don’t have a singular cause. However, according to a research paper written by Paul Dimaggio and Eszter Hargittai of Princeton, it can be pinpointed to a handful of “broad forms”; technological apparatus, autonomy, skill, and variation in use