Internationalizing Teaching and Teacher Education for Equity by Rahatzad Jubin;Dockrill Hannah;Sharma Suniti;

Author:Rahatzad, Jubin;Dockrill, Hannah;Sharma, Suniti;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Information Age Publishing, Incorporated
Published: 2016-11-28T16:53:01+00:00

Chapter 7

Rethinking Technology—“Technology

As a Public Good”

Examining the Korean Government’s Policy for Bridging Digital Inequality

Sunnie Lee Watson

Abstract

The South Korean government’s policy of bridging the digital inequality in society is a notion of “technology as a public good.” South Korea’s Master Plan for Closing the Digital Divide first launched in 2001 and has been continually renewed and updated for implementation for over a decade. In 2012, the Korea Communications Commission reported that 82.3% of all households in South Korea had broadband access (Park & Kim, 2014). Overall, this policy has been considered very successful in its implementation, becoming a uniquely successful example of information and communication technology (ICT) development through government policy implementation. In this chapter, I examine the notion of “technology as a public good” through the Master Plan for Closing the Digital Divide policy and explore how the policies were implemented and appropriated in the Korean cultural context. I also argue for the need for an enhanced understanding of the complex connections between digital divide policies, adoption of ICT use, and socioeconomically disadvantaged populations.

Introduction

In a society where knowledge-intensive activities are more and more important, the distribution of information across the population is increasingly related to divisions and stratification. Many optimists and information technology advocates have argued for the promise of information communications technology (ICT) in reducing social inequality, describing the current inequities in ICT access as temporary. These optimists and advocates, such as Rogers (1983), have argued that the benefits of technology will reduce inequality by decreasing the hurdles to information access, allowing people of all backgrounds to advance their human capital, strengthen their social networks, search for and find better jobs, and overall improve their quality of life by having the ability to access opportunities and information. However, others have warned that the rapid and uneven spread of Internet access across the population leads to increasing inequalities, advancing the situations of those who are already in privileged positions while disallowing the underprivileged opportunities for equal access (Hargittai, 2003).

Researchers, policymakers, and information technologists have paid attention to which parts of the population have access to the Internet and what sort of effects these trends have on society. Findings and arguments are mixed based on contextual factors, and the research clearly reflects that while the Internet has positive effects, it can also lead to further or new divides and inequalities (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Celeste, & Shafer, 2004; Van Dijk, 2012; Warschauer, 2004).

In this chapter, I review the implementation studies of the South Korean government’s policies on closing the digital divide. I specifically focus on their first digital divide policy, the 2001 Master Plan for Digital Divide Solution, which has been the most impactful and which takes the stance of “technology as a public good” in bridging the digital inequality in society.

The Digital Divide

The term “digital divide,” often also referred to as “information gap” or “information inequality,” is used to refer to the inequality between those people with effective access to powerful information technologies and those without access to it, particularly as embodied in the Internet (Norris, 2001).

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.