Section II: Problem Definition
What "Access" and "E-Literacy" Mean
Increasingly, familiarity with IT is being regarded as a new literacy, as essential to a country's social and economic development as the established literacies of reading, writing and numeracy. ... the indications are that in the future IT literacy levels will increasingly become determinants of success at an individual and national level .... Access to ICTs is ... not enough. We must also build the capacity to realise their potential. This means providing everybody with the opportunity to acquire and develop the skills needed to participate in the Information Society.
Irish Information Society
16. Access to ICT and e-literacy has four primary dimensions: attitudinal, financial, skill and infrastructure.
- Attitudinal: Perceiving ICT skills and access to the Internet as value-adding and important to future well being; perceiving the Internet as having meaningful and relevant content; being confident and motivated to go online.
- Financial: Being able to connect to the Internet from home, work or a community location in a way which enables a person to learn ICT skills and carry out required activities, through affordable access to a PC with connectivity to the Internet.
- Skills: Having sufficient skills, or access to tuition to develop and increase skills, to use ICT to an optimal level for personal and economic gain.
- Infrastructure: Having sufficient levels of bandwidth available to carry out e-commerce, e-government or educational interactions. Having hardware and software which meets specific needs, such as people with physical or learning disabilities, or language difficulties might have.
17. E-literacy means having the skills, knowledge and attitudes to use ICT to maximum advantage and to keep upskilling. Optimal levels of access and e-literacy means that a person can contribute more effectively to their own well being and be a more effective worker, entrepreneur, consumer and citizen.
18. If overseas evidence of the existence of a digital divide (information haves and have-nots) can be taken as a proxy for a similar situation existing in New Zealand, it is likely that not all New Zealanders and all locations will have optimal access to and capability to use ICT, for a number of reasons: this assumption is reinforced by the small amount of data available on Internet access in New Zealand (discussed in paragraphs 24-29).
19. Problems that have been identified include:
- an insufficient telecommunications service particularly in areas of lower population density;
- a basic lack of knowledge regarding the benefits of ICT among certain groups;
- a lack of skills to utilise ICT to best effect;
- an inability to afford the costs of access to equipment and the network;
- a lack of community access or low cost, pay per use access sites.
The Digital Divide
20. The term digital divide was coined to define the gap between those who have adequate access to ICTs, such as computers and the Internet (information haves) and those who have limited or no access, for either socio-economic or geographical reasons, or both (information have-nots).
United States Studies
21. A 1998 American study on the digital divide was among the first to raise the possibility of a growing information underclass.4 It suggested that the technology gap was not simply a reflection of the choices made by individual households but rather that poor neighbourhoods and some rural communities lacked the necessary infrastructure available in affluent and more populated areas. While policy attention is often focused on the disadvantage to an individual, an equally important problem is the growing unattractiveness of underwired locations to business. An inequitable distribution of information technologies can lead to "a concentration of poverty and a de-concentration of opportunity".5
22. Earlier United States Department of Commerce studies on connectivity show that over the last five years the least connected households remain:6
- Those on low incomes
- Black, Hispanic, or Native American
- Not employed
- Single parent (especially female headed) households
- Those with little education, and
- Those residing in central cities or especially rural areas.
23. A child in a low-income White family is three times as likely to have Internet access as a child in a comparable Black family. A child in a dual-parent White household is nearly twice as likely to have Internet access as a child in a White single-parent household, while a child in a dual-parent Black family is almost four times as likely to have access as a child in a single-parent Black household. A high-income household in an urban area is more than twenty times as likely to have Internet access as a rural, low-income household.7
The Digital Divide in New Zealand
24. While no equivalent data to the United States data on the digital divide is available here, available information suggests that any digital divide in New Zealand is likely to reflect existing disparities. That is, information have-nots are likely to be those on low incomes or state support, those with few or no qualifications, those living in less populated or less economically active areas - and their children. It is likely therefore that many Maori and Pacific Island peoples, unemployed people, sole parents, and people in rural areas will be over-represented amongst information have nots.
25. This is reinforced by the information available from a recent survey on another topic carried out for Porirua City Council that included a question on access to the Internet.8 While 50 percent of European/other residents had access, only 17 percent of Maori/Pacific Island residents had access.9 While 76 percent of those earning more than $50,000 had access, this dropped to 27 percent for those earning between $25,000 - $50,000, and to 15 percent for those earning less than $25,000. This reinforces the overseas data that income and ethnicity are primary factors in relation to access to the Internet. This also results in a geographical divide in relation to access: while 63 percent of residents in one ward had access, this contrasted with 37 percent and 17 percent access respectively in the two other wards.
26. General New Zealand data in relation to telephone, computer and Internet penetration also reinforces assumptions that ICT access and e-literacy are linked to income levels and ethnicity.
27. Telephone: Census data shows that low-income families, beneficiaries, Maori and Pacific peoples, particularly in certain geographic locations, have less telephone connectivity than the average of 97 percent penetration. Telephone connectivity is currently vital for accessing the Internet from home.
28. Computers: A marked difference along ethnicity and income lines exists in relation to households with computers. Only 23 percent of Maori households and 17 percent of Pacific peoples households have computers (in comparison to over 30% generally). While 57 percent of households with incomes over $71,600 have computers, this dropped to just over 50 percent for households with incomes from $31,400 to $48,999, and 16.6 percent for households with incomes below $20,000.
29. Internet: New Zealand research (AC Neilsen) shows that variations in the likelihood of having accessed the Internet in the past four weeks are best explained by age, household income and work status. Internet users are generally younger, in higher income brackets and in work. Just over 15% of people earning under $30,000 have ever accessed the Internet, despite high use by students, compared to over 30% of those earning between $30,000 and $60,000. This compares with nearly 40 percent of those earning between $40,000-$80,000, and nearly 60 percent for those earning over $80,000.
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