Digital divides revisited: what is new about divides and their research?

Abstract

This article critically reviews well-established and recent trends in digital divides literature and\nresearch, highlighting new elements of divides and the related research and making recommendations\nabout future research. First, it disentangles some aspects of the puzzling nature and ongoing\nimportance of digital divides. It then discusses how the concept of digital divides has evolved over\nthe last two decades and how research literature has examined it on the basis of different attempts at\ncontextualisation. The article brings together theoretical and empirical insights and suggests that\ndigital divides be revisited so as to illustrate the need for less linear and more properly contextualised\napproaches to the concept and phenomenon of digital divides where technology, society and politics\nwill be jointly taken into consideration to explain divides. It specifically proposes that digital divides\nand the research into these be revisited so as to emphasise the critical role of socio-cultural and\ndecision-making dynamics in structuring the adoption of ICT in both qualitative and quantitative\nterms. Thus, it argues that the web of cultural traits in a society, with its own gaps and disparities, as\nwell as policy and regulation dynamics, are in a constant dialogue with technology, together\ninfluencing digital divides and entailing implications for other forms of division in society

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