[Air-l] relation digital divide - knowledge gap

[Danny Butt]

Part of the problem - and Radhika's question gets to the heart of it - is
that the initial question was about a "causal relationship" between the
"digital divide" and the "knowledge gap". But both these terms are trying to
describe inequalities in a digital/knowledge economy, emerging from studies
which treat both "digital use" and "knowledge" as artificially stable
formations. Of course, there are a whole lot of traditions of thinking
inequality - class being the most long-standing - that have tried to
understand the social processes that produce the "digital" and "knowledge"
as measurable hierarchies. My own view is that both terms need a heck of a
lot of epistemological sorting out (some of which has been usefully done by
people on this list like Mark Warschauer in the digital divide case)  before
any real study can be done on "causal relationships" between them.

I usually hate gratuitous self-promotion on lists, but in this case, I have
to say that I wrote a thesis on this :7

Class in the Information Society: Socio-economic reproduction in the  new
media environment  
http://infoclass.dannybutt.net

There is a whole lot of routinely-passed-over work in economics, sociology,
education and cultural studies (among other fields) that is relevant here,
and I'd have to say I'm only beginning to get a handle on it. Chapter Three
has most of the stuff you'll find interesting Michaël, but in case you want
to avoid the class stuff and go for the references, I'd particularly
recommend:

Greenan, N., L'Horty, Y., & Mairesse, J. (2002). Productivity, Inequality,
and the  Digital Economy: A Transatlantic Perspective. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press. (particularly the chapters by Shaw; Chennells & van Reenen)

You may also want to look at the work of people like Sassen and Portes on
informal economies and social capital.

good luck!

Danny

--
http://www.dannybutt.net
adventures in cultural politics  - http://acp.dannybutt.net
digital media - http://digital.dannybutt.net



On 5/11/05 8:55 PM, "Radhika Gajjala" <radhika at cyberdiva.org> wrote:

> So instead of focussing on class and cultural capital and formations
> of knowledge-hierarchies we take for granted "smart" and "dumb" and
> proceed to study knowledge gaps.
> 
> interesting.
> 
> (of course I knew this - my question still is what "knowledge gap")
> 
> thanks for the kind explanation, Ulla:)
> 
> 
> r
> 
>> Radhika and others, the knowledge gap hypothesis is a theoretical
>> approach (not a
>> full-blown theory)  that was developed quite a while ago and that basically
>> describes how the smart are getting smarter and the dumb are not,
>> and so the dumb
>> seem dumber in comparison to the smart that are getting smarter. Well, this
>> is
>> oversimplification, but you may get the idea this way. Famous case study:
>> Sesamestreet in Britain, which was originally designed to teach the
>> kids of the
>> lower/blue color classes, but because kids of the middle classes
>> watched it too and
>> the middle class kids had more resources (supportive parents,
>> exposure to learning
>> opportunities, etc.), the middle class kids actually learned more
>> from Sesamestreet
>> than the working class kids did. Ergo: the knowledge gap widened, rather than
>> closed. And yes, this is very applicable to the digital divide and
>> I've long been
>> asking myself why no one seems to have picked up on that and did
>> some theory-based
>> work here. Glad to see Michael's interest in this and hope good
>> sources will pop up
>> on the list.
>> Ulla
>> 
>> --
>> ***Address Change for Ulla Bunz:
>> 
>> Starting July 1, I will be at Floriday State University. Please note
>> my new email
>> address: ulla.bunz at comm.fsu.edu. The new address is already in
>> place, so you may use
>> either the new address or the current address
>> (bunz at scils.rutgers.edu) until July 1.
>> Thank you!
>> 
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