(un)divided

As I said a few weeks back, I’ve never been much of a fan of the digital divide, the concept or the book. I appreciate its place in the literature and canon of recent media and technology discussions, but, like so many other highlights, I’ve always felt that it’s ignoring the big picture. Maybe that’s because I think anything devoted exclusively to the Internet and technology is only a smaller piece of a larger communications pie. It’s an especially pertinent belief, I guess, when the subject is something that concerns those who aren't necessarily getting an equal share of the technological pie.

My posts the next few days are each going to focus on one of the many problems I’ve had with the theory over the years since I first encountered it. A few of these are arguments I’ve hatched in previous posts.

Don't get me wrong, please. There are a LOT of people and a LOT of voices that are being silenced for lack of access to technology. But even if we evened the technological playing field, do we really think the Internet would be a utopian place where all voices would be given an equal share? I doubt it. There are bigger societal problems here than whether inner city youth have access to the Internet (which, again, I am SO TOTALLY IN FAVOR OF, so please don't misread me), and I feel like sometimes we just blame everything on the "digital divide" so we don't have to figure out what's really wrong with our country.

Why