Introduction
The paper will focus on examination of the connection between internet and equality. Firstly the reasons for inequality among the developed and developing countries will be examined and statistical data regarding the internet statistics. The research question of the paper is: what effect does the internet have on the inequality? The thesis of the paper is that uneven development of the internet affects the inequality. It is important to research the topic since many researches have so far examined the effect of the inequality on the internet use and access but little has been said about what effect does the internet has on the inequality. The paper will focus on examination and comparison between the developed and developing world. The researches were usually one dimensional.
Inequality in the world
Defining the reasons for the global inequality can help to reduce it. The wealth versus poverty is seen in the inequality in income, wealth and has on the global level been explained through various statistical measures. The inequality between the developed and developing world can be shown with the Gini coefficient that can compare the world’s inequality. Since inequality is not something new, the history matters. The inequality is greater when looking and the world and not solely one nation or state. The reasons for inequality are history, colonialism, political systems, poverty, trade and economy, corruption, underdevelopment, lack of infrastructure and connectives, lack of technological innovations, globalization, education, race, ethnicity, and gender among many others (Holton, 2014).
The inequality affects the growth and development. It is a signal of lack of income, mobility and opportunity and has negative impacts on the whole societies. Widening the inequality has implications on the macroeconomic stability; it concentrates the decision and political making power in the hand of minority, causes reduced investment in political and economic instability and is increasing crisis risks. It causes unemployment, which leads to the rising income inequality and wealth and lack of opportunity that is resulting in social costs. It leads to the corruption, resource misallocations and nepotism with eroding social cohesion and choices. Inequalities can result in conflict or can damage trust and social cohesion (International Monetary Fund, 2015).
Inequality perpetuation
Unequal access to the information and communication technology (ICT) has been defined as the digital divide or digital gap. It exists inside the countries, between the countries and also in the specific groups in the nations. Various levels of digital divide exist and positive effect on the countries that are ICT-rich, faster compared to the countries that are ICT poor has been acknowledged. The ICT development is further widening the gap between the developed and developing countries. United Nations Commission on Science and Technology Development has devoted many studies to examine the connection between the ICT and development. The consensus to bridge the divide has been achieved and has resulted in various different strategies. Uneven diffusion of technology and inequality in the access has consequences on the social, economic and political development (Afolayan, 2008).
ICT (2015) report shows that the digital divide in terms of subscribers is shrinking. The statistics show that the gap between the developing and the developed countries has been narrowing. The differences are vast among the regions and among developed and developing countries. In developed countries in 2015 there were 2 billion internet users and in developing countries around 1.2 billion. The fact that 4 billion people in developing countries stay offline is representing 2/3 of the whole population in developing countries. The penetration rate for developing countries is 9.5 %. Comparison between the developed and developing world is showing unequal access since 81% of the population has access to the internet in developed countries in comparison to 34.1% on developing ones. In the Europe and the America the biggest percent of the population was online, where Asia Pacific and Africa have a lot lower %. The challenges exist also in the big difference between the rural and urban areas (ICT, 2015).
Technological diffusion is resulting in uneven global economic integration and development. The lack of infrastructure, energy grids, bandwidths and high costs of the access and equipment are hindering the development. With no access to internet the rural sectors and small business are not nationally and internationally connected to the chain of services and production and are left outside the global economic system. With the underdevelopment in the ICT sector the technicians are moving to more developed countries which is even increasing the problems of the developing ones since they lack experts. Because of no internet connectivity, developing countries are confronted with the limited opportunities, smaller markets, non-transparent and time consuming procedures and lack of timely information (Afolayan, 2008).
Different access to information and computer technologies is related to the individual characteristics that include level of income, education, sex, age, ethnicity and employment. Based on the Van Dijk (2012, 60) “categorical inequalities in society produce and unequal distribution of resources”, which leads to the “unequal access to digital technologies” that depend on the “characteristics of this technologies” which results in the “unequal participation in society” and “reinforces categorical inequalities and unequal distribution of resources”. There are various personal categorical inequalities, age, gender, race, intelligence, personality, health, household and nation that impact the use of internet. Economic, social and cultural capital is resulting in the digital divide which is researched based on the “temporal, material, mental, social, cultural” (Van Dijk, 2012, 61) capital. This capital is based on the time to use the media, income, possession, technical ability, motivation, skills, physical access, possessing the social network, status and liking in the digital media (Van Dijk, 2012).
The assumption of the paper is that unequal access to the internet and ICT creates the lack of opportunity which results in fewer possibilities for education and therefore less possibility to get better paid jobs which results in the further inequality. Since the development impact the inequality and equality in the society we can assume that the internet and connectivity matter in reducing the inequality gap between the developed and developing countries.
Internet and inequality research approaches
The paragraph will explain how inequality and the internet are connected. Within the digital divide new social inequalities are being shaped. Social inequality has been increasing all around the globe in developed and in developing countries. The distribution of the internet is uneven and the digital gap between developed and developing countries is widening. Uneven diffusion of the internet is seen and is based on the gender, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and geographical location. The disadvantage communities cannot take advantage of the internet usage. Social inequality in using or not using the internet is seen in the fact that the internet is being used for seeking information, engaging in entrepreneurial and civic activities and getting jobs. The implications the internet has today are far reaching for societies. The digital divide varies based on the country characteristics and also based on the individual characteristics. The relation between the digital divide and social inequality is complex. Social inequalities affect the use and access to the internet, but it can also affect the reproduction of social inequality. Usually studies have examined the effect of social inequality on use and access of the internet and not the other way around (Cheng & Wellman, 2005).
There are two opposing sides of effect of the internet on the inequality. One side expects that internet can reduce the social inequalities and broader social problems such as poverty or illiteracy. Other sides believes that the internet will enlarge the already existing gap between poor and rich and that the information “haves” and “have-not” and will even increase the difference between the better connected and poorly connected countries (Cheng & Wellman, 2005).
Based on the Cheng & Wellman (2005) the optimists are regarding the internet as a factor that can reduce the social inequality since it is the key to the economic growth, empowerment of disadvantaged, social development and cultural diversity. Poorer countries can benefit from the information revolution since internet is regarded as a tool that will lead to greater democracy and effective governance. Initiatives such as e-government can promote transparency and reduce corruption that is the basic problems that hinders the economic and social development in developing countries. The internet can help reduce the inequality with the empowering the disadvantaged groups that could profit from the internet and online activities by providing their products directly to the costumers. With the global flow of information the gender, race, class and geographical location are not the factors that would affect the traditional correlation with the inequality. Internet access would provide solutions for various social problems that are the core factors contributing to the world inequality such as poverty, health and literacy. Afolayan (2008) reported that early visions were very optimistic about the ICT technologies which were seen as equalizing agent that would reduce the class, race, gender and social inequalities. The results showed that uneven development was seen through the domains of work, production, education, economy, trade and politics. The relationship between the internet and inequality has potential to alter class, gender, age and racial inequalities but opens new ones.
Opposite of the group described so far are pessimists that believe the internet will increase social inequalities with widening the gap between the poor and rich between the poor connections and good connections. The arguments that the internet cannot help to provide more transparency since the authoritarian regime will acquire the technologies and used them for surveillance, propaganda and filtering. They believe the technology would not be used as the tool for education. The arguments involve other technologies that are global present such as radio, telephone and cable that eventual are not used for the education, but rather for the entertainment and it is impossible to predict the use of the technology in the future. The access to the internet is denied to the majority of the world population. The lack of social and technical resources will further divide the world because they cannot afford it. Users in developing country must pay more for use and access of the internet because of the insufficient infrastructure. The internet is supposedly reproducing and reinforcing social inequalities because the majority lack the necessary social and technological resources and do not have the knowledge-based economy. The social infrastructure not only the physical matters. In the countries that are involved in poverty, war, corruption it is harder to build civil trust than infrastructure and without peace the development is impossible. The ones that are in business first can only create the competitive advantage which means that the developing countries can only follow the developing ones. Internet cannot be a cure to all social problems (Cheng & Wellman, 2005).
Only internet is not enough to tackle the inequality
There are various suggestions how to reduce the digital divide and help the disadvantaged communities. Narrowing the gap cannot be achieved with only offering access and technology to access the internet. It is a long way of narrowing the digital divide to the digital opportunities. The developing countries must provide also the telecommunication policy and infrastructure, internet access in the country and also in public places, the right training and education with the increased digital literacy and promotion and encouragements of the knowledge based network society. There were various knowledge barriers to the internet access and use such as school enrolments, education attainments, newspaper readership and language diversity that can represent the issue in reducing the inequality in the developing world. Computer networks could improve life in the developing countries by raising the equality. Developing countries could with the internet benefit in the area of education, health care, e-commerce, democracy and human rights, e-government, news and entertainment. For the real evidence there should be a pilot study done in the nation that has a high level of illiteracy, poverty with dense population and with lack of telecommunication infrastructure. New technology must therefore be used in the right social and institutional context.
Conclusion
The paper has shown that is not easy to determine how the internet affects the inequality. Both directions: impact of internet on inequality and effects of inequality on the internet must be taken into an account. Little research has been done on the first correlation and basically only theories were made. More research is needed in the area of what happens when people gain the access to the internet and how this results in the equality and inequality. It cannot be argued that sole access to the internet will guaranty better education, employment, development of skills since it depends on how it will be used by the individual. Various research and theories are paradoxical and inconclusive. The benefit of the internet does not come with the sole access to it. The digital divide has been proved with the inequality of access and purposes of use. It would not even be enough to examine only the effect the access to the internet represents since for the holistic picture also the ones that cannot afford the access to the internet should be examined. A different measurement exists among the countries and the majority of the researches done so far have been conducted in the developed world.
There has been two opposing sides, one that have been arguing that the internet can decrease the inequality and other that believes that the internet will increase the inequality. The fact is that the digital divide is widening and developing countries need to pay higher prices for slower internet access than developing ones, because of the lack of the infrastructure and services. The higher prices mean also less investment in the countries that are dealing with issues such as hunger, poverty and war. Internet has the potential to improve the quality of people’s lives and also to reduce the inequality but only under the specific circumstances. People must have the means to afford it there must be available possibility to use the internet with quality services and speed. Factors such as education, age and literacy also play an important role. When once in use the people must have the motivation to use internet in accordance of making a profit out of it and learn how to achieve more opportunities. It is easy to be on the opposing side and looking for the arguments why the internet would not improve the inequality in today’s world based only on the theory. The practical examination and researches conducted so far examined the impact of internet on inequality was very few and that is why it is impossible to say for sure whether the impact is positive or negative. It is also hard to prove that particular ICT development has a direct impact on the equality. The ability and opportunities for individuals, firms and nations to create the wealth is definitely increasing with the internet access. The impact of the internet is different and can be used as a tool of knowledge, emerging public sphere, tool for exchanging, searching and sharing information about education, jobs, health, politics and becomes a medium of communication. With the know-how of using the internet with the supportive politics and development can result in cultural and social capital. In order to reduce the digital divide and with it also reduce the inequality much development is needed in the infrastructure, provision of technology and also in the social sphere with sharing information and education about the internet usage and possible opportunities.
Work Cited
Afolayan, Emanuel Gbenga. (2008). Uneven Access to New Technologies – a Paradox of Change in Social Inequalities. Retrieved http://www2.unine.ch/files/content/sites/inequality08/files/shared/documents/papers/A folayan.pdf
Chen, Wenhong, Wellman Bary. (2005). Minding the Cyber-Gap: the Internet and Social Inequality. Retrieved http://groups.chass.utoronto.ca/netlab/wp- content/uploads/2012/05/Minding-the-Cyber-Gap-The-Internet-and-Social- Inequality.pdf
Holton, J. Robert. (2014). Global Inequalities. New York. Palgrave.
International Telecommunication Union – ITU. ITU yearbook of Statistics 2015. (2015). Retrieved http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/publications/yb2015.aspx
International Monetary Fund. (2015). Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality: A Global Perspective. Retrieved https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf
Van Dijk, Jan. (2012).The Network Society. London: Sage Publication.
