The digital divide
Subtitle: facing a crisis or creating a myth?
By: edited by Benjamin M. Compaine.
Contributors: Compaine, Benjamin M.
Series: MIT Press sourcebooks
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 357
Subjects: Digital divide -- United States.; Information technology -- Social aspects -- United States.
Description: "The digital divide refers to the perceived gap between those who have access to the latest information technologies and those who do not. If we are indeed in an Information Age, then not having access to this information is an economic and social handicap. Some people consider the digital divide to be a national crisis, while others consider it an over-hyped nonissue. This book presents data supporting the existence of such a divide in the 1990s along racial, economic, ethnic, and educational lines.

But it also presents evidence that by 2000 the gaps were rapidly closing without substantive public policy initiatives and spending. Together, the contributions serve as a sourcebook on this controversial issue."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The set-up: documenters of the digital divide; title: Falling through the net: a survey of the "have-nots" in rural and urban America / National Telecommunications and Information Administration; title: Falling through the net: defining the digital divide / National Telecommunications and Information Administration; title: The evolution of the digital divide: examining the relationship of race to internet access and usage over time / Donna L. Hoffman, Thomas P. Novak, Ann E. Schlosser; title: The context: background and texture; title: Information gaps: myth or reality? / Benjamin M. Compaine; title: Universal service from the bottom up: a study of telephone penetration in Camden, New Jersey / Milton L. Mueller, Jorge Reina Schement; title: Universal access to online services: an examination of the issue / Benjamin M. Compaine, Mitchell J. Weinraub; title: Universal service policies as wealth redistribution / Milton L. Mueller / Equality in the information age / William E. Kennard; title: The digital divide confronts the Telecommunications Act of 1996: economic reality versus public policy. The first triennial review, 1999 / Mark Cooper, Gene Kimmelman; title: The e-rate in America: a tale of four cities / Andy Carvin, Chris Conte, Allen Gilbert; title: Universal access to email: feasibility and societal implications / Robert H. Anderson, Tora K. Bikson, Sally Ann Law, Bridger M. Mitchell; title: Clinton enlists help for plan to increase computer use / Marc Lacey; title: Reality check: tracking a moving target in high-tech time; title: Internet and society: a preliminary report / Norman H. Nie, Lutz Erbring; title: The digital world of Hispanics in the United States / Cheskin Research.; title: Survey of Americans on technology / National Public Radio, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Kennedy School of Government; title: The truth about the digital divide / Ekaterina O. Walsh, Michael E. Gazala, Christine Ham; title: Internet access spreads to more classrooms, survey finds / Pamela Mendets; title: Cheap computers bridge digital divide / John Simons; title: This internet start-up looks to conquer an online divide / Timothy Hanrahan; title: What's it all mean?; title: Of gaps by which democracy we measure / Jorge Reina Schement; title: Falling for the gap: whatever happened to the digital divide? / Adam Clayton Powell III; title: Declare the war won / Benjamin M. Compaine.