DTC 475 Post Two

Digital Divide

Waschauer suggests that the original term is "the notion of a binary divide between the haves and the have-nots". But he completely disagrees by stating that the "Digital divide is marked not only by physical access to computers and connectivity, but also by access to the additional resources that allow people to use technology well." (Warschauer)
I completely agree with him. This digital divide is not measurable- making it difficult to say exactly what it is. Waschauer mentions samples of different situations of the difficulty to get immediate access to the Internet; It could be simply the lack of time conflict, tool resources, and/ or the lack of literacy, making it more of a gray shade area than just black and white issue.


2. Can you think of any other metaphors besides the office
metaphors used with Windows and Macintosh operating systems that
might be better? How come these might work better? (150-200)

I really can’t think of other metaphors. I do understand the idea behind the status of class between the two operating systems; At a small scale there is a divide in the preference of operating system based on the standardized English language literacy capacity of the user. In other words classifying that English is the only way and the right way.

Cited
Warschauer, M. (2002). Conceptualizing the digital divide. Retrieved August 31, 2010 from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/967/888

Selfe, C, & Selfe, R. (1994). The Politics of the interface: power and its exercise in electronic. Electronic Contact Zones College Composition and Communication, 45(4), Retrieved from http://www.paulmuhlhauser.org/475/Readings/interface.pdf