Editorial: Information Poverty and the Wired World

There is considerable concern worldwide that the explosion of the Internet may leave many nations far behind, producing growing disparities between advanced industrialized and developing societies. Potentially, however, the Internet could broaden and enhance access to information and communication in developing nations because it offers a relatively cheap and efficient service. Small businesses in South Africa and Mexico can sell their products directly to customers in New York, irrespective of the traditional barriers of distance, the costs of advertising, and the intermediate distribution chains. With the travel industry accounting for up to a third of total on-line revenues in 1997, sales via the Internet are likely to be an important source of growth for developing countries (ITU 1999). The Internet also offers promise in the delivery of basic services like education and health information to far-flung regions, allowing a teacher or doctor in Ghana or Calcutta access to the same database information as one in London or New York. Networks of hospitals and health-care professionals in the Ukraine, Mozambique, and Senegal can share medical expertise and knowledge. Distance learning can widen access to training and education, such as open universities in India and Thailand and language Web sites for schools. Moreover, by connecting disparate social movements, new coalitions can be formed mobilizing global civic society, such as those concerned about the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, sweatshop manufacture of Nike shoes, or opposition movements in Burma, linking indigenous groups in developing societies with Norwegian environmentalists, Australian trade unionists, and European Union human rights organizations. The Internet provides a voice in the global arena for nongovernmental organizations as a countervailing force to traditional international organizations. In all of these regards, the Internet promises to level the playing field and reduce the traditional disadvantages of the developing world.

Yet basic access is required before the potential benefits of the Internet can flow to developing societies. How realistic is this? In the emerging Internet age, the information revolution has transformed communications in postindustrial states like Sweden, Australia, and the United States that are at the cutting edge of technological change, reinforcing their lead in the new economy. But thus far in the twenty-first century, the benefits of the Internet have failed to reach most of the poorer nations in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. The gap between the information-rich and -poor countries has sharply increased in the emergent years of this new technology (Norris 2000b; OECD 1999:85-98). The United Nations Development Report warns that the gains in productivity resulting from the new technology may widen differences in economic growth between the most affluent nations and those that lack the skills, resources, and infrastructure to invest in the information society: "The network society is creating parallel communications systems: one for those with income, education and literally connections, giving plentiful information at low cost and high speed; the other for those without connections, blocked by high barriers of time, cost and uncertainty and dependent upon outdated information" (UNDP 1999:63). Echoing these concerns, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) emphasizes that the north-south divide may be exacerbated in a situation in which most of the world's population lacks basic access to a telephone, let alone a computer (UNESCO 1998). As a result, poorer societies can become increasingly marginalized at the periphery of communication networks. Although the Internet is a new technology, there is nothing particularly novel about this pattern. Research on global information flows from north to south have long emphasized the center-periphery distinction, a problem that aroused heated debate in the 1980s centering on UNESCO's New World Information Order (Galtung and Ruge 1965; Mowlana 1997). The growing importance of the information economy can be expected to exacerbate these divisions.

How far has the Internet diffused around the world? No official data yet exist on how many people go on...