ABSTRACT
This chapter develops a dynamic view of using the new media for the participation in society. Most everyday notions and many scientific analyses of the so-called “digital divide” are static views of social inclusion and participation. It is presumed that problems of new media access are solved when everyone has a computer and a network connection and is able to work with them. This is seen as a single event in history after the technical and commercial introduction of a particular kind of technology, in this case the personal computer and the Internet. In doing this, one also reveals a technical view of new media access: a hardware and software orientation. Access is a matter of having and being able to operate a computer and an Internet connection. How they are used, and for what purposes, receives much less attention. Finally, one tries to explain the differences observed in new media access by the usual, in this respect rather shallow, demographic variables of income, education, age, gender, ethnicity, and urban or rural background. In this way, one misses the opportunity of going deeper in the analysis. Perhaps new (in)equalities emerge in the information society and in new media access not fitting these classical distinctions. Anyway, these distinctions are hiding the deeper social, psychological, and cultural roots of media access, the central perspective of this book.
