Fractured space: a geographical reflection on the digital divide

Fractured space: a geographical reflection on the digital divide

Hwang, Dongbum

Patrick Poncet & Blandine Ripert, Geojournal 2007

Contents• Motivation• Approach• The fractured space• Fluctuating geometric beside space and another

angle• ITC urban space policy• The peri-urbanization of the Indian villages• Coherence of individual space• A divide? To what end?• Conclusion• Critique

1/15KAIST Ubiquitous City

Motivation• What does it mean to reflect upon space in connection to

telecommunications?

• Considering the notion of the ‘digital divide’ in a new light

• Urbatic, geographers, three years research activities that take into account two fields of social science : urbanity and telecommunication

• Surveys conducted in this perspective focus on the analysis of the choices people make between the different means they can use to cope with distances (copresence, mobility and telecommunication) with a view to constructing their own space.


Approach• Two outstanding facts

– Referring to equipping the Indian countryside with In-ternet

– Recent evolutions in Internet offers in France show an increase of the gap of the download speed

• Two questions– If there actually is a phenomenon that we may call

the ‘digital divide’ occurring within urban space, how can we study it?

– How is it possible to integrate the notion of the ‘digi-tal divide’ into a theory of space in general?


The fractured space• Historical account of ICT(Information and

communication technologies) to show how close a relation unites them with urbanity

• ‘Digital divide’ is differences in terms of ac-cess to ICT that exists between rural and urban areas

• The notion of ‘fractured space’ considers the application of digital fracture into a spa-tial dimension.


The fractured space• More pragmatic approach of Villeurope network

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Interlinked decentralized administrative units with the ratio above 4% of com-muters in the total population

Interlinked decentralized administrative units with the ratio above 16% of com-muters in the total population

KAIST Ubiquitous City

Fluctuating geometric beside space and another angle

• Mobility and telecommunication are techniques that can be used by urban actors to master space.

• To be urban, one has to deftly combine the ‘three modalities of distance’ - copresence, mobility, and telecommunication.

• The degrees of urbanity is related to various levels of den-sity and diversity of the expression of modalities

• In order to adapt the notion of the digital divide, two types of causes can be proposed on the grounds of this theory: a defi-cient space capital and a poor articulation of the modalities for dealing with distance.


ICT urban space policy

• Infrastructure policy and space policy– Political leader : digital divide Infrastructure Pride for high-speed internet system

– Successful computer equipment policy increase space capital

– Infrastructure policy can make a cycle which in-creases telecommunicational demand

– Good choices and transparent priorities are needed


ICT urban space policy• The cybercity / tele-urban alternative• Cybercity– The telecommunication frees the copresence from the

telecommunicational function– The real-time diffusion of information, travel time de-

crease to the benefit of copersence

• Tele-urban – The city is nuisance factor– The way of life that the network predominates– Strictly functional mobility Circumscribed spaces– Telecommunication is a substitution of copresence


The peri-urbanization of the Indian vil-lages

• 60 villages equipped with a computer connected to internet

• Expectation – Creation a network effect between villages– Validation of a practical communication and infor-

mation services platform in rural regions

• Service – Prices in urban region, remote access to health and

agriculture advisor– Local news, government subsidies


The peri-urbanization of the Indian vil-lages

• Project result after four years – Extremely rarely usage of agricultural advisors– Public services are used largely like astrology become a

daily operation– Some computer centers turned into cinemas or cash

withdrawal areas

• Analysis of these village practices – The village area is coming closer to the urban center

through the diffusion of ICT– Reduction of the topological distance between cities and

villages– First stage in situ ‘peri-urbanization’, the usual separa-

tion between town and village no longer really applies


Coherence of individual space• People tend to give weight only to what is most fre-

quent and erase the others

• Single day is proper to deal with their choice

• Our task is to identify different types of choices made between the different modalities

• Three interview criteria in Mumbai– Their level of connection to the telecommunication networks– According to their lesser or greater mobility in the city– According to their place of residency, accounting the different

levels of urbanity, evaluating the level of copresence


A divide? To what end?(Taxi driver example in Mumbai)

• Lifestyle– Telecommunication networks is poor– No internet connection, no cell phone– Living with his wife and children, his brother and brother’s fam-

ily– Every morning, using train and bus to pick up his taxi(daily four-

hour route)– The sources of information about a cricket match are the pan

seller and newspaper in the train, tea seller in the street

• Great mobility in Euclidian distance, but poor mobility in the diversity Maybe one of victims caused by ‘digital di-vide’

• What about giving an internet connection and a cell phone to him?


A divide? To what end?(To reduce fractures and change the world)

• The necessity to consider a simple dearth of connec-tion to telecommunication networks and other ways of dealing with distances like lifestyles

• Technologies are closely related to ‘digital divide’ but there is a social context to prefer a strong cohesive social network between people

• A cell phone may be useless for the taxi driver

• Digital fracture appears to rely heavily on the way in which people produce their space


Conclusion• Usage of the notion of digital fracture within the urban

context and a geographical analysis– Causes of ‘digital divide’ : Lack of copresence and ICT

(the weakness of one modality, difficulty of expression of the modalities)

– Solution : Improvement of copresence, efficient spring-board is to increase density(evolution of infrastructure)

– This is in some cases, not the general conclusion

• Conceptual strength of the ‘digital divide’– Geographer can analyze and understand regarding a city– Providing its communicational impact as a geographical

knowledge


Critique• Strong points– New viewpoint about ‘digital divide’– Suggested that ‘digital divide’ or computerization is

one of the geographic subject– Not concentrating on the gap of ‘digital divide’, but be-

ing relative differences according to the lifestyle and copresence

• Weak points– Specific examples are difficult to generalize ‘digital di-

vide’, which are short of density and diversity of the city


Documents

Fractured space: a geographical reflection on the digital divide