ABSTRACT
The diffusion of digital technologies around the globe is progressing at various rates. This chapter explores initiatives that are attempting to bridge the digital divide in remote Indigenous Australian communities. It looks at the social context of the use of ICTs and draws attention to the generational divides, linguistic divides, and literacy divides in remote Indigenous Australia generated by the rapid diffusion of digital technologies. A digital divide is still evident in many remote Indigenous communities in Australia, yet as will be argued here, where there is access, there is uptake, if the devices and infrastructure can be shaped by the context, values, and practices of the user community. That is, where there is access to technologies that are meaningful to Indigenous people’s social and cultural life, there has been rapid uptake, often leading to productive learning (Kral & Schwab, 2012) and innovative applications (Carew, Green, Kral, Nordlinger, & Singer, 2015; Christen, 2008; Ormond Parker, Fforde, Corn, O’Sullivan, & Obata, 2013; Thorner & Dallwitz, 2015). Indigenous people have also been quick to realize the communicative potential embedded in the digital environment through Facebook and to harness the potential for the multimodal expression of ideas through digital music and media production, thereby suggesting that rather than consider the ‘digital divide’ solely in terms of infrastructure, hardware, and training, the digital divide also needs to be understood in terms of social and cultural practice.
