The Digital Divide and Information Systems Research: Stepping Up or
Stepping Away?
Lynette Kvasny
(lkvasny@ist.psu.edu)
Steve Sawyer
(sawyer@ist.psu.edu)
Sandeep Purao
(spurao@ist.psu.edu)
School of Information Sciences and Technology
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16803-6823
USA
Abstract
Contemporary interest in the digital divide owes much to the attention it receives in
government and foundation reports, newspapers, and popular magazines. Commonplace
notions about the digital divide are now entering information systems (IS) research.
Under these conditions, IS scholars may see the digital divide as preconstructed with a
set of questions to be studied and concerns to be resolved. To effectively participate in
the discourse, we contend that IS scholars must amplify these questions and concerns to
include both the technological artifacts as well as the socially organized fields of choices
that shape the context of these artifacts. This more nuanced perspective can provide IS
scholars a more potent platform to pursue basic aspects underlying the digital divide and
avoid simplistic approaches that only address the preconstructed questions and concerns.
In this paper, we discuss three areas in which digital divide scholarship in IS can profit
from such nuanced insight: (1) the manner in which information and communication
technology (ICT) artifacts are conceptualized, (2) the manner in which ICT artifacts in
these domains are developed, deployed and evaluated, and (3) the manner in which
educational experiences prepare students who can conceptualize and develop these
artifacts.
Prepared for the MISRC/CRITO Symposium on the Digital Divide, Carlson School of
Management, University of Minnesota, August 27-28, 2004.
Introduction
Through this paper, we argue that IS scholars interested in the issues and scholarship of
the digital divide should go beyond the preconstructed questions and concerns that
permeate the current discourse. The digital divide scholarship in IS could be too easily
misdirected if the concepts and issues continue to be treated in an atheoretical and
preconstructed way. Instead, we see an opportunity for IS scholars to help reshape the
digital divide discourse by raising questions and addressing concerns that go beyond the
somewhat naïve views about creation and deployment of ICT solutions towards
perceived problems. Specifically, we identify three areas where IS scholars can
contribute: (1) studying ICT applications in new domains, (2) conceptualizing ICT
artifacts in a more comprehensive manner, and (3) intervening in educational settings to
provide students opportunities to learn about the roles of ICT in settings where the digital
divide is being enacted.
We develop our arguments by first outlining the current discourse on the digital divide;
followed by the development of themes that represent opportunities for IS scholars to
contribute valuable insights and better understand, theorize and respond to the digital
divide’s many issues. Based on this analysis, we explore three ways that IS scholars can
engage in the digital divide scholarship. To further bolster the core argument that IS
scholarship could be misdirected if concepts and concerns of the digital divide are seen in
a preconstructed way, we highlight some of the more basic inter-relationships in the
discourses in both the contemporary IS and the digital divide research. We conclude the
paper by discussing each of three areas we identify and provide recommendations for
proceeding.
Conceptualizing the Digital Divide
The commonplace definition of “digital divide” comes from the National
Telecommunication and Information Administration’s (NTIA) “Falling Through the Net”
policy report series issued during the Clinton administration. According to Larry Irving,
the former assistant secretary for Communications and Information for the US
Department of Commerce, “…no one at NTIA invented the term, digital divide. NTIA’s
reports were, however, the catalysts for the popularity, ubiquity, and redefinition [from
the LA Times original usage] of the term” ("Origin of the Term Digital Divide"2001).
Though the origin of the term is unclear and the scope and meaning of the digital divide
continue to be debated, it remains a commonplace term that communicates one of the
many disparities in the local economy, the national society and the global village (Foster
and Borkowski, n.d.).
Most contemporary academics have largely taken up the digital divide discourses as the
government has formulated them. Consequently, under these conditions, the digital
divide comes to scholars preconstructed in terms of research questions, methods,
measurements, assumptions, and a doxic worldview. This encourages us to define
technology in certain ways, to ask certain questions and exclude others, to take up
2
problems defined in advance, and, perhaps most tellingly, to accept the terms of public
debate as the basis for our research.
For example, the digital divide is often framed as what should be (universal access and
effective use) rather than what it is (a contemporary basis of inequality experienced by
structural minorities such as urban poor or small/under-resourced businesses). The
emphasis, to date, has been to describe the digital divide in statistical terms as a means of
presenting trends and demographics. These statistics are often used to create and justify
categorizes such as “people on the wrong side of the divide” and “information havenots”. These collectives are then ranked in a hierarchy of superiority and inferiority
(Outhwaite and Bottomore, 1993). In doing this, the digital divide discourse becomes
preconstructed and too-often racist in the use of science (i.e. statistical demographics) to
construct and name groups that reflect social and ethnic lines. Then, in the name of
equality and social justice, aid is offered to the groups believed to be inferior. Seeing the
digital divide as preconstructed leads to discourses that describe historically
disadvantaged groups as “catching up” and “at risk of falling further behind”, and may in
fact help to perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophecy (Hacker and Mason, 2003).
As scholars deeply engaged in matters of social justice and the roles of ICT in both
redressing and reproducing ongoing societal inequities, we question this doxa. In
academic discussions of the digital divide, are we maintaining old and dangerous myths
in our simplified constructions of ICT and their values? Will we participate in
propagating shortsighted and heavily prejudiced recitations of the demographic
characteristics of the divide? Will we export our concepts without understanding the
implicit theories that underlie them?
As we noted, much of the current preconstructed nature of the digital divide discourse
focuses on differential levels of access to, and value derived from, ICT as a function of
socio-economic class, race and ethnicity, age, gender and geography (such as urban/rural
and lesser/more-developed areas). If the differential access and value element becomes
the focus of IS scholarship, why be shocked when those who belong to groups long
designated as inferior still are not engaged in what arises from that limited and superficial
scholarship? If we focus on differential access by size of institution or by type of work,
have we addressed issues with conceptions about who possess the skills and resources for
ICT-centric work? Have we engaged those who have been disengaged from the sciences
surrounding ICT that are premised on the dangerous illusion that modern ICT are
somehow neutral technologies?1
There has been much less theoretical analysis of the logic of digital divides and their
effects (Kvasny and Truex, 2000). Instead, much of the contemporary digital divide
discourse rationalizes both the importance of ICT in society and advocates its use as a
mechanism for alleviating social inequality and hierarchy. In the digital divide discourse,
1
For example we are careful to note our interest in the scholarship of information systems in organizations
and society, and to not focus on the overly narrow conceptualization implied by management information
systems research. We return to this point in our discussion of the ICT artifacts.
3
minority groups2 are ranked both by natural attributes such as race and age, and by
structural conditions of poverty and geographic segregation. The socio-technical nature
can be seen when ICT, for instance, facilitates the global exploitation of low-cost labor,
cultural markets, and human migration patterns. On its own, ICT does not create
inequities such as racism or sexism: these phenomena predate computing. Rather, these
social processes and logics treat historically underserved groups primarily as
opportunities for or impediments to the dissemination of ICT. Because the a priori
premise of ICT is often profit, its logic concerning social issues such as the emancipation
of women and minorities, or preservation of the environment becomes largely
instrumental. In the context of the digital divide, issues of social justice tend to be
reduced to matters of bottom line calculus: tolerated when costless, enthusiastically
promoted when profitable, but too-often opposed when change demands substantial
diversion of social surplus (Dyer-Witheford, 2000).
The preconstructed concepts of the digital divide discourse bring together the uniquely
American ideals of social equality, public education, universal access, and technological
progress. This discourse is further privileged by the naïve use of science that, as we noted
earlier, too-often legitimizes the exploitation and disadvantage of minority groups. For
instance, the 2002 NTIA report has been used by the Bush administration as evidence to
justify a closure of the divide (the term digital divide is not mentioned in the document),
and the subsequent retrenchment of digital divide funding. Relevant federal programs that
dispersed US$45M for digital divide projects in 2001 were zero-funded in 2003 (Benner,
2002).
Opportunities for IS Scholars to Contribute to Digital Divide Scholarship
The stakes surrounding the digital divide discourse and the science that justifies
associated policy remedies are large and far-reaching. Thus, it seems important that IS
scholars bring their theories, methods, and analytical skills to bear on these issues. Rather
than understanding the digital divide as a technical measure of access, we can serve
society by focusing on the question of the digital divide itself: what are the sociotechnical conditions of the emergence of this concept and of the inequality to which it
points the way?
The digital divide cannot be discussed, much less decided, solely on the terrain of ICT
because the issues are also products of scientific discourses that privilege technology
while largely ignoring historic disparities that limit access in the first place. By removing
history, ICT is wrongly seen as a neutral tool, and its use to redress existing disparities
one of deploying the correct ICT solution. The limitations of this technocentric view have
been engaged in the IS literature since the 1970s. The relevant findings from this
literature are often set in specific (large, for-profit) organizational contexts and this masks
the more general contributions of the IS scholarship. For example, forty years of IS
scholarship suggest the importance of clear and coherent strategic (policy) initiative, the
2
Minority groups are not limited to people of color. We also include underserved and ICT marginalized
populations such as inner cities, rural communities, elderly citizens, “lesser developed” countries, not-forprofits, and small enterprises.
4
importance of leadership, attention to developing systems with users’ needs and input, the
careful control of project development, attention to the systemic nature of interdependent
systems, the potential value of merging commonplace and emerging technologies, and
the need to carefully oversee the entire lifecycle of an IS effort. Simply, the IS literature
and IS scholars have much to offer those engaged in the scholarship of the digital divide.
We identify three areas in which IS scholars and their efforts can make potentially unique
and valuable contributions to digital divide scholarship. These include: (1)
conceptualizing ICT artifacts in new domains, (2) studying the processes for developing,
deploying and maintaining ICT applications in these domains, and (3) designing
educational experiences to prepared students to engage in conceptualizing and developing
ICT applications in these domains. We elaborate on these below, highlighting how these
contributions can be harmful or at best limited if superficial or preconstructed
conceptualizations of the extant digital divide discourse are not overcome.
1. Highlight the socio-technical view that underpins IS scholarship for studying ICT
artifacts: Conceptualize Information Systems as a complex amalgam of people,
hardware, software, structures, rules, norms, and resources instead of the naïve
perspective on ICT prevalent in current digital divide scholarship
Much of the extant digital divide literature adopts a proxy perspective (Orlikowski and
Iacono, 2000) in which critical aspects of ICT are captured through quantitative surrogate
measures. The critical aspect is typically the statistical interpretation of the rates at which
particular ICT artifacts, largely computers and internet access, become widespread across
social groups within various socio-institutional contexts. For instance, the 2002 NTIA
report examines computer and internet access and use in the home, at work and at public
access centers. Diffusion rates and patterns are tracked over time, and used to inform
debates concerning the extent to which gaps have closed or widened. There is also a
thrust to assert the universal need for ICT and to better understand those who choose not
to go online. Indeed researchers examine Internet dropouts (Katz, 1997) (Katz and
Aspden, 1997) and Net evaders (Lenhart et al., 2003). Barriers to ICT adoption tend to be
conceptualized in technological and economic terms, and typically address questions
such as why certain demographic groups are slow to adopt ICT, and what individuals or
nations can do to not be left behind technologically.
However, we know from forty years of IS research that ICT encompasses not only
information systems like customer and employee database systems, and the personalized
collection of devices such as cellular pones and personal computers. ICT is a pluralistic
and fluid concept that also includes the broader social context in which the artifacts and
information systems are embedded. It is only by examining the social milieu that the uses
of ICT can be understood. In saying this, we explicitly connect social with technical to
form the intimate interdependency of ICT as a socio-technical relationship.
A socio-technical perspective makes it clear that people are social actors. That is,
peoples’ individual autonomy, their agency, and their behaviors are shaped by social
norms, organizational forces, and structures that surround them (Lamb and Kling, 2003).
5
These structures can be as straightforward as an office layout. But, structures also include
the uses of computer systems, the inherent organizational structure of data, procedures
and interactions, and authority structures based on power and knowledge. Viewing
people as social actors makes clear that they are often acting in very constrained, if not
sometimes prescribed, ways.
A socio-technical perspective also emphasizes the ensemble view of computing
(Orlikowski and Iacono, 2000) . In this view, the elements of computing are enmeshed
into the institutional structures of particular situations and the social-actor nature of
individuals. Such an institutional appreciation for ICT makes it difficult to abstract “best
practices” as they are currently construed in much of the contemporary IS and digital
divide literature. It also makes it difficult to de-contextualize findings drawn from one
site and apply them to a second site. General models for designing ("CTC Startup
Manual"2003) and evaluating (O'Neil, 2002) digital divide initiatives should therefore be
adapted to local contexts.
2. Investigate how and whether the considerable body of knowledge from IS
regarding successful design, development and deployment of information systems
can be useful for developing ICT applications in new domains: Focus on the
intended and unintended effects of ICTs that arise during their design,
development, implementation and operation.
ICT uses have both far-reaching and unexpected outcomes. For instance, academics and
policy pundits frequently promote networking for libraries, clinics, and schools, by
arguing that if they are wired together, their use will improve public education and enable
substantially improved public services. How to actually transform such networks into
meaningful social support systems is a question that remains unanswered. While it might
appear that access is the primary roadblock, a meaningful social support system also
requires a mix of economic resources, technical skills, reliable infrastructure, skilled
support personnel and well designed human interfaces to support the abilities of diverse
organizations and people who actually use the services. This complex mix of components
forms an intricate computing package.
Because computing packages are not homogenous across sites, IS scholars should not
assume that it is possible to fully understand the impacts of a particular ICT use. Further,
we cannot always expect that ICTs will have the positive or negative effect we expect
them to have. For these reasons, it would be hurtful if IS scholars focused on
opportunities enabled by ICT without attending to costs. It would also be harmful to
focus on the managerialist and power/privilege perspective rather than the operational
nature. This is, in essence, repudiation of managerialistic orientation (removing the “M”
from IS). It is an explicit recognition of the organizational and institutional nature of IS.
For example, the increased attention to community informatics, digital government,
online social communities and the local effects of e-commerce are all areas where IS
scholars are actively engaged and are bringing in the extant body of literature of IS to
6
new domains In essence, the intellectual discipline that reflects IS knowledge is being
exported, re-interpreted and extended in new domains and with new forms of ICT.
3. Incorporate knowledge of ICT in work, home, and life in the education of current
and aspiring IT professionals.
The focus in much of the contemporary IS education is on the applications of ICT in
business domains. However, as ICT becomes more pervasive, its impacts are felt not only
in the domain of the workplace, but also in the home and local neighborhood institutions
such as schools, churches, and libraries. ICT, especially mobile devices, raises issues of
work at home, communication at home, entertainment, access to medical information,
and other personal uses. IT professionals will increasingly be called upon to design and
configure information systems that support and alter social life. Effective application
designs in these disparate contexts cannot be based on technological considerations
alone; their formulation requires understanding of how people work and interact, and
what kinds of social practices people engage in the home and in life. Contemporary IS
education makes clear that context-free criteria such as more advanced, lower cost, faster
technologies are simply not good enough to help IT professionals design or implement
effective systems (Kling, 1999). As the spaces and places where ICT uses expand, so to
must the attention to preparing IT professionals to engage in understanding these domains
in order to design, develop, implement and support new forms of IS that will thrive
outside of business applications processing.
Knowledge of socio-technical concepts and techniques is a central force in shaping the
design, construction, and implementation of ICTs. If future IT professionals understand
this collective body of knowledge, then the systems they construct are more likely to be
economically efficient, useable, and useful. The digital divide is an important site for
examining the paradoxical effects of ICT, understanding why ICTs are not neutral tools,
and for understanding the importance of context in shaping ICT access and subsequent
use.
Recommendations
Given the limitations in current digital divide studies and the opportunities that this
presents for IS scholars, we provide recommendations for future research and education.
1. Expand the Domain of Study in IS
We recommend expanding IS research by: (1) focusing on news domains, (2)
investigating levels of analysis beyond the work group and organization; and (3)
engaging in studying artifacts beyond the PC and Internet and uses beyond the standard
business function
The dominant venue of theorizing the roles of ICT in IS has been the Fortune 500
organization. However, as ICT moves out of the workplace and both spans and moves
into the home and public spaces, there is an ever-increasing need for research that draws
7
on these new domains. There is also a corresponding need to study ICT at levels of
analysis other than the organization or work-group (Walsham, 2000; Kaplan et al., 2002;
Sawyer and Chen, 2002). IS researchers may enjoy distinct advantages resulting from
increased attention to domain and level-spanning research. Research communities whose
work is built on looking across sectors are more likely to be able to highlight pertinent
issues and opportunities related to the continued growth in, reliance on, and increased
pervasiveness of ICT. Precisely because IS draws theories and different types of analysis
from multiple disciplines, IS researchers are uniquely qualified to offer insights and
perspectives regarding ICT in a wide variety of domains(Orlikowski and Iacono, 2000).
Theories of, and analytic techniques for studying IS would be valued by many other
research communities (Baskerville and Myers, 2002).
When studying digital divides from a socio-technical perspective, it becomes clear that
providing access to computing artifacts and measuring diffusion rates are narrow ways
for understanding the issues. IS research must also examine human agency (adoption and
use of ICT) within the confines of structural constraints such as history, culture,
economics, and public policy. These structural constraints help us to understand how
differential use of the same ICT artifacts and information systems are influenced by
cultural and social factors, and not simply preconstructed categories of income, race,
ethnicity, geographic location, gender, and age.
Finally, in contrast to the long time foci of IS on production computing efforts such as
data processing and management reporting in organizational contexts, we contend that IS
scholarship should expand to include applications, infrastructures, and emerging systems
of communications, coordination, access and entertainment technologies.
2. Leverage Extant Knowledge
One of the challenges of applying a socio-technical perspective in digital divide research
is the trans-disciplinary nature of research. Studies are published in disparate journals
which read by scholars and educators in different academic fields. Moreover, these
studies focus on different social settings and use different social theories to understand,
predict, and explain differential ICT use.
This suggests that review articles and conceptual papers are needed to synthesize the
digital divide literature. These papers will help scholars in IS grapple with the issues of
the digital divide, and, perhaps more importantly, reduce the likelihood that
preconstructed notions will dominate. Moreover, review articles and conceptual papers
will be valuable to those scholars of the digital divide who want to benefit from the extant
IS literature in this area.
3. Rethink IT Education
As has been noted, there are at least four reasons to include socio-technical concepts and
analytic techniques in ICT-oriented student’s education (Kling et al., 2000):

To provide a set of conceptual frameworks for computing oriented students to
8



organize and assimilate the social forces affecting the functionality embedded into
ICTs.
To help these students understand how the design, configuration and
implementation of ICTs is a socio-technical process.
To help students develop a set of analytic techniques to help identify and evaluate
the social consequences of ICT-based systems.
To assist technically trained people in developing reflective and inquiry-focused
appreciation of the benefits and limitations that ICTs provide.
Broadening the current IT education to engage issues of digital inclusion, design of
community networks, and other forms of public computing are both the essence of the
knowledge society and an important form of civic engagement and citizenship. This
engagement is important to include in future IT student’s education. Moreover, to
exclude such a focus is perhaps an intellectual, and is certainly a social, disservice to the
future.
Conclusion
Through this paper we highlighted three areas where IS scholars can both broaden the
scope of our scholarship and contribute to the ongoing discourse on the digital divide: (1)
engaging a wider range of ICT applications for study, (2) engaging more deeply in the
ways in which ICT artifacts are conceptualized, and (3) the expanding the educational
engagements provided to university students regarding the roles and values of ICT. In
making the case for these opportunities, we have emphasized that digital divide
scholarship in IS could be too easily misdirected if the concepts and issues of the digital
divide are treated in a superficial or preconstructed way. We have argued for a sociotechnical perspective of contemporary digital divide conceptualizations; one that engages
the structural and contextual nature of the phenomena. In addition, we have highlighted
how the literature of IS development and the roles of IS in social organization, two
strengths of the IS discipline, can be useful in the scholarship and discourses of the digital
divide.
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