Trends in Digital Divide

Information and communication technologies (ICT) have the potential to offer vast advantages to users. ICT could bring broad and in-depth information to those who have been hitherto denied such knowledge and thus opportunities for social and economic mobility. It could open up new possibilities for more transparent and inclusive public administration/governance everywhere by opening up direct channels to the arenas of decision making, and by engendering a proliferation of public spheres and stronger civilsociety networks brought together by the “death of distance”. It could become the engine of redistribution of knowledge and expertise in the areas of education and public health from the centers of production in the metropoles of the North to the remote corners of the earth. It could pave the way for an inclusive economic sphere by lowering entry barriers for e-commerce and provide two-way flow of goods knowledge and ideas to any and all.