Minority cultures, virtual communities and the digital divide

Overview

Virtual community, digital divide and consequences of global contrasts in access.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   How can cyberspace support minority and diaspora cultures rather than erode them?

   Model answer

   By lowering the cost of producing and distributing content in a minority language to a small and scattered audience, which was previously uneconomic. Language learning resources, dictionaries, broadcasting, music and social media in minority languages are now accessible anywhere, and speakers separated by distance can form a community of use. Diaspora media, religious services, community organisations and fundraising all operate transnationally, and cheap communication lets migrants remain participants in their origin community rather than losing contact with it. So the same technology that spreads international culture also gives small cultures tools for survival and revival, and which effect dominates depends on how actively the community and public policy use them.

2. 2

   How has cyberspace changed the geography of cultural production?

   Model answer

   It has cut the cost of entry, so individuals and small groups anywhere can produce and publish music, video, writing and games without a studio or a publisher, and audiences can be reached directly. That disperses production. At the same time, the platforms through which almost all of it is distributed, and the advertising revenue that flows through them, are concentrated in a very small number of very large firms headquartered in a handful of countries, and the attention of audiences concentrates on a small proportion of the content. So production has dispersed while control, revenue and visibility have concentrated.

3. 3

   What is a virtual community, and what are its strengths and limits?

   Model answer

   A virtual community is a group whose members interact mainly online and are bound by shared interest, identity or purpose rather than by shared location. Its strengths are that it overcomes distance, gathers people with rare interests or minority identities who would be isolated locally, offers support and information at any hour, and can organise action quickly across borders. Its limits are that participation depends on access, skills and language; that ties can be weaker and more easily broken than those based on daily face-to-face contact; that groups can become closed to outside information; and that it cannot deliver the practical, physical help that a community of place provides.

4. 4

   What is the digital divide?

   Model answer

   The digital divide is the unequal distribution of access to and effective use of digital technologies, both between countries and within them. It has several layers: whether a connection is physically available; whether it is fast and reliable enough to be useful; whether it is affordable relative to income; whether the user has the skills, literacy and confidence to use it; and whether there is content in a language the user reads. A country can close the first layer and still have a wide divide in the others, which is why simple counts of users understate the problem.

5. 5

   What economic factors produce global contrasts in access to cyberspace?

   Model answer

   Income above all, since devices and data cost a far larger share of income in low-income countries. Network infrastructure requires heavy capital investment in cables, masts, exchanges and backhaul, and private operators invest where returns are highest, so provision follows population density and purchasing power and leaves sparsely populated and poor regions last. Landlocked countries pay more for international bandwidth because they must buy transit through neighbours. Unreliable electricity supply limits both networks and charging. Where markets are small or incomes low, the commercial case for rural coverage may not exist at all without subsidy.

6. 6

   What social factors produce contrasts in access to cyberspace?

   Model answer

   Literacy and years of schooling, since much use requires reading and confidence with forms and interfaces. The language of content, which disadvantages speakers of languages with little material online. Age, with older people generally reporting lower use and lower confidence. Disability, where devices and sites are not designed accessibly. And a gender gap in mobile phone ownership and internet use that is documented in a number of low and middle income countries, arising from differences in income, education and social norms about ownership and use. Within any country there is also a marked urban to rural difference in both connection quality and digital skills.

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.