Digital Divide & Hype; Public Relations

Buzz word: Digital Divide & hype

Tuesday 1 December 2009

It has come to my attention that this will be my final blog entry for the semester. As this is a very sad occasion for me, I thought I should make the most of it by getting on with the task and finally finishing it for good. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed all 4 of my blog entries and I personally think they have been a great way of getting the class to think outside the square and build on issues to do with digital media and society.

Before I begin this blog, I thought it would be a good idea to firstly define the digital divide theory. According to Flew it has been defined as ‘the differential access to and use of the Internet according to gender, income, race and location’(Flew 2009). According to the lecture notes from this week, hype refers to hyperbole, an excessive promotion, exuberant positive (or negative) discourse or exaggeration (Brand 2009).

Are the commercial promises made about digital media just hype to cloud our vision about the digital divide?

‘A recurring feature of the development of the internet and the popularisation of digital media technologies has been their capacity to generate hype about how these technologies will change everything typically for the better’(Flew 2009). I personally agree with this statement; however I do feel as a student that I have been blindsided by the digital divide and the hype that surrounds it. I agree with the question for this week that the commercial promises made about digital media are just hype and they have blurred my vision about the digital divide in essence. However, if the boot was on the other foot, and I lived in somewhere like Africa, whereby I was offered a laptop, I for one, would not know how to use it and would probably think all my Christmas’s had come at once. I would be over the moon about it. I have never stopped to think how the other half live, without access to telephones, the internet or Facebook, until now. You kind of forget to think about the idea that although so many percentage of the world is connected via the internet, what about the other percentage that aren’t?

In terms of the public relations profession, it is fair to say that it is an information rich industry. I honestly do not think that Public Relations professions in 2nd world countries like Africa would be able to survive without the internet or connectivity that the internet brings (2009). The internet to public relations is like what cheese is to Jatz, you can’t have one without the other. I guess you could relate the digital divide, hype, 1 laptop per child scheme all back to globalisation. In this sense it could be used as a positive thing, one which means that these children are now connected to the rest of the world(Bob Kelly 2009).

In conclusion, I believe that the popularisation of digital media technologies and the hype associated with it has changed everything typically for the better, however it has also blindsided me into being so focused on my own world that I have never stopped to think about the rest of the world not connected like I am. In terms of public relations, it has furthered this industry and I believe it will probably further it more however the industry just needs to be weary of hype and the digital divide.

(2009). "One Laptop per child." Retrieved 1/12/2009, 2009, from http://laptop.org/en/.

Bob Kelly, G. T., Raya Procovnik (2009). Globalisation- What is it. Understanding Social Change.

Brand, J. (2009). Globalisation Lecture 12. D. M. S. Class. Gold Coast, Bond University.
Globalisation

Flew, T. (2009). New Media: an introduction, Oxford University Press.