Fractured space: a geographical reflection on the digital divide

1. Patrick Poncet & Blandine Ripert, Geojournal 2007 Fractured space: a geographical reflection on the digital divide Hwang, Dongbum

2. Contents • Motivation • Approach • The fractured space • Fluctuating geometric beside space and another angle • ITC urban space policy • The peri-urbanization of the Indian villages • Coherence of individual space • A divide? To what end? • Conclusion • Critique KAIST Ubiquitous City 1/15

3. Motivation • What does it mean to reflect upon space in connection to telecommunications? • Considering the notion of the ‘digital divide’ in a new light • Urbatic, geographers, three years research activities that take into account two fields of social science : urbanity and telecommunication • Surveys conducted in this perspective focus on the analysis of the choices people make between the different means they can use to cope with distances (copresence, mobility and telecommunication) with a view to constructing their own space. KAIST Ubiquitous City 2/15

4. Approach • Two outstanding facts • Referring to equipping the Indian countryside with Internet • Recent evolutions in Internet offers in France show an increase of the gap of the download speed • Two questions • If there actually is a phenomenon that we may call the ‘digital divide’ occurring within urban space, how can we study it? • How is it possible to integrate the notion of the ‘digital divide’ into a theory of space in general? KAIST Ubiquitous City 3/15

5. The fractured space • Historical account of ICT(Information and communication technologies) to show how close a relation unites them with urbanity • ‘Digital divide’ is differences in terms of access to ICT that exists between rural and urban areas • The notion of ‘fractured space’ considers the application of digital fracture into a spatial dimension. KAIST Ubiquitous City 4/15

6. The fractured space • More pragmatic approach of Villeurope network Interlinked decentralized administrative units with the ratio above 4% of commuters in the total population Interlinked decentralized administrative units with the ratio above 16% of commuters in the total population KAIST Ubiquitous City 5/15

7. Fluctuating geometric beside space and another angle • Mobility and telecommunication are techniques that can be used by urban actors to master space. • To be urban, one has to deftly combine the ‘three modalities of distance’ - copresence, mobility, and telecommunication. • The degrees of urbanity is related to various levels of density and diversity of the expression of modalities • In order to adapt the notion of the digital divide, two types of causes can be proposed on the grounds of this theory: a deficient space capital and a poor articulation of the modalities for dealing with distance. KAIST Ubiquitous City 6/15

8. ICT urban space policy • Infrastructure policy and space policy • Political leader : digital divide  Infrastructure  Pride for high-speed internet system • Successful computer equipment policy increase space capital • Infrastructure policy can make a cycle which increases telecommunicational demand • Good choices and transparent priorities are needed KAIST Ubiquitous City 7/15

9. ICT urban space policy • The cybercity / tele-urban alternative • Cybercity • The telecommunication frees the copresence from the telecommunicational function • The real-time diffusion of information, travel time decrease to the benefit of copersence • Tele-urban • The city is nuisance factor • The way of life that the network predominates • Strictly functional mobility  Circumscribed spaces • Telecommunication is a substitution of copresence KAIST Ubiquitous City 8/15

10. The peri-urbanization of the Indian villages • 60 villages equipped with a computer connected to internet • Expectation • Creation a network effect between villages • Validation of a practical communication and information services platform in rural regions • Service • Prices in urban region, remote access to health and agriculture advisor • Local news, government subsidies KAIST Ubiquitous City 9/15

11. The peri-urbanization of the Indian villages • Project result after four years • Extremely rarely usage of agricultural advisors • Public services are used largely like astrology become a daily operation • Some computer centers turned into cinemas or cash withdrawal areas • Analysis of these village practices • The village area is coming closer to the urban center through the diffusion of ICT • Reduction of the topological distance between cities and villages • First stage in situ ‘peri-urbanization’, the usual separation between town and village no longer really applies KAIST Ubiquitous City 10/15

12. Coherence of individual space • People tend to give weight only to what is most frequent and erase the others • Single day is proper to deal with their choice • Our task is to identify different types of choices made between the different modalities • Three interview criteria in Mumbai • Their level of connection to the telecommunication networks • According to their lesser or greater mobility in the city • According to their place of residency, accounting the different levels of urbanity, evaluating the level of copresence KAIST Ubiquitous City 11/15

13. A divide? To what end?(Taxi driver example in Mumbai) • Lifestyle • Telecommunication networks is poor • No internet connection, no cell phone • Living with his wife and children, his brother and brother’s family • Every morning, using train and bus to pick up his taxi(daily four-hour route) • The sources of information about a cricket match are the pan seller and newspaper in the train, tea seller in the street • Great mobility in Euclidian distance, but poor mobility in the diversity  Maybe one of victims caused by ‘digital divide’ • What about giving an internet connection and a cell phone to him? KAIST Ubiquitous City 12/15

14. A divide? To what end?(To reduce fractures and change the world) • The necessity to consider a simple dearth of connection to telecommunication networks and other ways of dealing with distances like lifestyles • Technologies are closely related to ‘digital divide’ but there is a social context to prefer a strong cohesive social network between people • A cell phone may be useless for the taxi driver • Digital fracture appears to rely heavily on the way in which people produce their space KAIST Ubiquitous City 13/15

15. Conclusion • Usage of the notion of digital fracture within the urban context and a geographical analysis • Causes of ‘digital divide’ : Lack of copresence and ICT (the weakness of one modality, difficulty of expression of the modalities) • Solution : Improvement of copresence, efficient springboard is to increase density(evolution of infrastructure) • This is in some cases, not the general conclusion • Conceptual strength of the ‘digital divide’ • Geographer can analyze and understand regarding a city • Providing its communicational impact as a geographical knowledge KAIST Ubiquitous City 14/15

16. Critique • Strong points • New viewpoint about ‘digital divide’ • Suggested that ‘digital divide’ or computerization is one of the geographic subject • Not concentrating on the gap of ‘digital divide’, but being relative differences according to the lifestyle and copresence • Weak points • Specific examples are difficult to generalize ‘digital divide’, which are short of density and diversity of the city KAIST Ubiquitous City 15/15