Abstract
In this article, we explored rural China’s digital divide problem from a social structure perspective, especially regarding the practical process and mechanism of the digital divide forming in different village structures. Traditional village and industrialized village represent two types of rural China’s social structure, which provide a good case for studying the digital divide between different types of villages. We consider the gap formed in possessing information and communication technologies(ICTs) as the primary divide, and take the gap formed in using ICTs as the secondary divide. Moreover, a “mutual reproduction” effect exists between the divides formed in the course of possessing and using ICTs. Finally we pointed out that cell phones, as a mobile network, may become the first carrier of the integration of the future information technology and an effective agent weapon helps bridging the digital divide.
This paper is one of the research results of “Peasants and Information Technology Research Group, Tsinghua University(Department of Sociology)–Nokia research center(Beijing)”. Thanks for suggestions of Prof. Yuhua Guo, Prof.Yuan Shen and Prof.Liping Sun. Dr.Jun Jin also contributed essentially to the improvement of this paper.
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Chen, P., Wang, J., Si, Z., Wang, J., Liu, Y. (2009). The Application of ICTs and Digital Divide in Rural China. In: Aykin, N. (eds) Internationalization, Design and Global Development. IDGD 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5623. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02767-3_39
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02767-3_39
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