ABSTRACT
Much contemporary discussion concerning information technology policy focuses on concerns about a growing disparity or “digital divide” between users and nonusers of new information technologies, and the differential rate of adoption of information technology along socioeconomic lines. The U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration charted this divide in five reports (NTIA, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002). The first four identified clear demarcations between urban and rural, rich and poor, white and minority, male and female, and high and low education. Although recent studies found a trend toward broader diffusion of Internet access (Horrigan & Rainie, 2002; NTIA, 2002), there remain issues of whether Internet access translates into social access (Bucy, 2000), and whether the technology is being used in a “transactional arena” or a “home digiplex.” With the emergence of the Internet as an important new communication medium, raising all citizens to the ranks of those able to access and benefit from
information technology (IT) has emerged as an explicit social and policy objective (Anderson, Bikson, Law, & Mitchell, 1995).
