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Who's Responsible for the Digital Divide? Public Perceptions and Policy
Implications
Dmitry Epsteina; Erik C. Nisbetb; Tarleton Gillespiea
a
Department of Communication, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA b School of
Communication, the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
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DOI: 10.1080/01972243.2011.548695
Who’s Responsible for the Digital Divide? Public
Perceptions and Policy Implications
Dmitry Epstein
Department of Communication, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
Erik C. Nisbet
School of Communication, the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
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Tarleton Gillespie
Department of Communication, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
equitably distributed. Persistent gaps between developed
and developing nations, as well as gaps domestically along
socioeconomic, geographic, educational, racial, and gender lines, have broadly come to be known as the “digital divide”—a term that both names these disparities and
stands as a marker for the concerns about them. Addressing the reasons for and the solutions to these inequities has
been on the public agenda, as part of nearly every conversation about information policy, since the emergence of
the Internet.
However, in reviewing public statements by policymakers and industry leaders, it is apparent that the term can
mean different things, depending on the audience and the
context. “Digital divide” not only covers different kinds
of disparities with different kinds of consequence, it also
obscures the variety of ideas about the nature of the problem itself and the manner in which it should be resolved.
In some ways, this semantic flexibility may be of instrumental value, a pliable rallying cry around which groups
with different specific needs and goals can unite in a single
broader effort (see Boyle 1997). On the other hand, it may
indicate some basic unquestioned assumptions about the
nature of the “digital divide” and of ICTs more broadly.
Rather than a united effort toward a single solution, these
competing interpretations of the digital divide may in fact
drive toward different policy outcomes.
In the first part of our study, we examine how the term
“digital divide” has been deployed across a range of academic and policy discourses. Through this process we
identify two master interpretations, or “frames,” of the
problem: One focuses on inequalities in material access
to ICTs, and the other focuses on inequalities in the skills
Addressing the reasons for—and the solutions to—the “digital divide” has been on the public agenda since the emergence of
the Internet. However, the term has meant quite different things,
depending on the audience and the context, and these competing interpretations may in fact orient toward different policy outcomes.
The goals of this article are twofold. First, the authors unpack
the term “digital divide” and examine how it has been deployed
and interpreted across a range of academic and policy discourses.
Second, through a framing experiment embedded within a nationally representative survey, the authors demonstrate how presenting
respondents with two different conceptual frames of the digital divide may lead to different perceptions of who is most accountable
for addressing the issue. From this, they discuss the dynamic relationship between the construction and communication of policy
discourse and the public understanding of the digital divide, as
well as implications for effective communication about the digital
divide and information and communication technology policy to
the general public.
Keywords
digital divide, experiment, framing, ICT, responsibility,
telecommunication policy
Since the early 1990s, policymakers and rights advocates have worried that the benefits derived from information and communication technologies (ICTs) are inReceived 23 November 2009; accepted 24 October 2010.
Address correspondence to Dmitry Epstein, 209 Kennedy Hall,
Department of Communication, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853,
USA. E-mail: de56@cornell.edu
92
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WHO’S RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DIGITAL DIVIDE?
necessary to use ICT effectively. We argue that each interpretation implies different kinds of solutions and different actors who may have the ability and obligation to
intervene.
We also hope to demonstrate that who the public holds
most accountable for addressing the issue depends in part
on how the issue is framed. Depending on how the digital
divide is described, different policy agendas may seem
more or less plausible to the public, and current policies
may seem more or less appropriate. But merely identifying competing frames in the policy discourse does not
necessarily speak to whether these frames have any impact on public perceptions of the issue. So we added a
modest empirical probe into the effects of these frames.
We conducted a framing experiment embedded in a national survey, testing how presenting respondents with
one of these two conceptual frames might lead to substantially different perceptions of how to best address the
problem.
We believe this mixed approach, pairing an analysis of
frame construction within policy and academic discourse
with a survey experiment assessing the influence of explicated frames on audience perceptions, strengthens the
validity of the overall study. We conclude our study by
discussing the implications for effective communicating
efforts to bridge the digital divide, and about ICT policy
more broadly, to the general public.
FRAMING POLICY FOR THE PUBLIC
Framing is an analytical approach that cuts across the
fields of communication, political science, sociology, and
psychology and has explanatory power at both the macro,
or institutional, and micro, or individual, levels of analysis
(Benford and Snow 2000; Chong and Druckman 2007;
Gamson and Modigliani 1989; Iyengar 1994; Nisbet and
Huge 2006; Scheufele 1999; Scheufele and Tewksbury
2007). As a theoretical framework, it is aptly suited for
our goals of unpacking competing interpretations of the
digital divide and linking policy discourse with citizen
perceptions.
Frames at the most basic level are “schemata of interpretation” that allow individuals “to locate, perceive, identify, and label” issues and topics within their own personal
context (Goffman 1974, 21). Gamson and Modigliani
(1989) describe frames as interpretative packages that give
meaning to an issue by presenting “a central organizing
idea . . . for making sense of relevant events, suggesting
what is at issue” (3). Frames may offer particular problem definitions, diagnose causes, and/or suggest remedies
for individuals employing those frames when constructing
meaning, processing information, and making evaluations
or decisions in everyday situations (Entman 1993, 2004;
Gamson 1992).
93
Furthermore, frames operate both at a societal or institutional level and at an individual psychological level.
Frames are constructed, modified, and diffused across a
variety of competing social, political, and economic actors
such as politicians, advocacy organizations, social movements, media organizations, corporations, and the like.
(Benford and Snow 2000; Gamson and Modigliani 1989;
Scheufele 1999; Scheufele and Tewksbury 2007; Gitlin
1980; Gamson 1992). Though framing processes are not
necessarily intentional, competing actors constantly engage in meaning construction and diffusion of interpretative packages (strategic framing) that align with their
goals or interests (Chong and Druckman 2007; Benford
and Snow 2000; Scheufele and Tewksbury 2007).
At a psychological level, frames may influence individual opinions, evaluations, and judgments by making
either new or existing considerations more applicable, or
valued, than others (Chong and Druckman 2007; Nelson,
Oxley, and Clawson 1997; Pan and Kosicki 2005). By
emphasizing a restricted set of available considerations
when forming an opinion or by prioritizing new considerations over old ones, frames fundamentally impact how
individuals process available considerations about an issue or topic (Chong and Druckman 2007). In other words,
“frames in communication” are strategically constructed
and communicated by social, political, and economic actors with the goal of influencing audiences to use specific interpretive “frames in thought” when making sense
of an issue, topic, or problem (Benford and Snow 2000;
Chong and Druckman 2007; Scheufele 1999; Scheufele
and Tewksbury 2007).
Scholars across a number of academic disciplines have
examined the competition between social, political, and
economic actors over the preferred definition and interpretation of a topic, issue, or event; the diffusion of competing frames across policy and media discourse; and frames’
influence on audience understanding of important issues
(see, e.g., Benford and Snow 2000; Entman 1993; Entman
2004; Gamson and Modigliani 1989; Nisbet and Huge
2006; Scheufele 1999; Scheufele and Tewksbury 2007).
Focusing on the role of the media as a key actor in framing processes, Scheufele (1999) develops a macro-micro
model of framing that highlights the frame-building activities of competing social, political, and economic actors
and their promotion of these frames to the mass media,
and in turn the frame-setting role of the media in communicating frames and shaping audience attitudes about
an event, topic, or issue. Benford and Snow (2000) take
a similar macro-micro approach in their model of frame
contests between social movements and their targets. They
identify specific processes of strategic frame construction,
and diffusion of those frames by competing social actors,
all with the goal of shaping the public understanding of a
social problem and spurring citizen mobilization.
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D. EPSTEIN ET AL.
Several authors have applied framing process models
to particular policy issues, from international policy matters to public controversies concerning science and technology. For example, Gamson and Modigliani’s (1989)
seminal work focused on competing frames about nuclear
power and how different interpretative packages about the
issue shaped policy discourse, technology adoption, and
citizen understanding. Entman (2004) has proposed a cascading activation model that examines the construction
of issues frames about foreign policy by policy actors,
their promotion and diffusion through the mass media,
and their impact on audience perceptions of foreign policy issues like terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. More recently, Nisbet and Huge (2006) proposed
a model of “mediated issue development” by examining how agricultural biotech was framed in policy discourse as compared to media discourse over time—with
key implications for American attitudes about genetically
modified food.
This focus on framing processes within policy and
media discourse is complementary to what some have
called the “argumentative turn” (Parsons 1995, 151–53) or
the “politics of problem definition” (Rochefort and Cobb
1994) in the field of policy analysis. Policy scholarship has
long recognized that the characterization of a public problem can often set the terms for how it will be perceived
by policymakers, the press, and the public, and can point
toward certain kinds of policy solutions. The argumentative turn emphasizes the pivotal role of language in this:
The construction of social problems is both strategic and
structural, a deliberate rhetorical tactic that takes place on
an already given discursive terrain (see also Fischer and
Forester 1993; Rein and Schön 1993).
COMPETING INTERPRETATIONS
OF THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
The digital divide has been a salient issue for information and communication technology (ICT) policymakers
at both the national and the global levels for quite some
time. In the United States, the Clinton administration directed the National Telecommunication and Information
Agency (NTIA) to examine ICT and Internet adoption in
the United States; this investigation led to a series of reports titled “Falling through the Net.” The first of these
reports, released in 1995, documented systematic gaps in
the use of computer networks by socioeconomic status,
educational background, race, gender, and geographic location. To some extent that first report spurred (and offered rhetorical justification for) the Telecommunication
Act of 1996—which, among other things, included public schools and libraries within the expanded “universal
service” mandate, granting them significant “E-rate” discounts on the costs of building computing and telecom-
munication infrastructure. Starting in 1999 NTIA reports
used the term “digital divide” explicitly, while documenting the gradual narrowing of these recalcitrant gaps. As
Internet use has grown, the debate in the United States
has shifted toward a “broadband divide,” focusing on
the implications of similar sociodemographic disparities
around the availability and use of faster broadband Internet
connections.
While concern in the United States has focused on disparities by socioeconomic status, education, and geography, similar questions have been raised on a global level
concerning disparities in access to ICTs between developing and developed nations. Even as recently as 2007,
while nearly three-fourths of the population of the United
States used the Internet, use in Africa remained in the
single digits.1 A series of global efforts has been initiated to spur greater ICT use in the developing world. In
1996 the World Bank launched its InfoDev program, to
help finance small-scale projects designed to implement
ICTs as part of broader development efforts. In 2000 the
United Nations proposed eight “Millennium Development
Goals,” one of which was making “available the benefits of
new technologies—especially information and communications technologies.”2 In 2002 the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) sponsored the World Summit on
the Information Society (WSIS); two meetings in 2003
and 2005 brought together political and industry leaders
to discuss how to bridge the “global digital divide,” and
more broadly to consider the future of ICT and development on an international scale.
Framing the Digital Divide as a Problem of Access
Among global policymakers, the discourse surrounding
ICTs and the digital divide is typically founded upon a
fundamentally technocratic optimism: The technology is
taken to be the ultimate developmental tool, and simply
installing it will spur “development” more broadly. This
is hardly a new presumption in U.S. and European policymaking (Smith 1994). Analyzing the 2003 Geneva meeting of the WSIS, Hamelink (2004) criticized the discourse
on digital divide as being too detached from the context
of international development and focused primarily on
expansion of the technology from the “haves” to “havenots.” Similarly, Rooney (2005) showed that the main focus in WSIS policy documents concerning the “knowledge
economy” was technological development, particularly in
terms of improved infrastructure, as the ultimate solution
for an array of social problems. Thompson (2004) characterized one speech by the president of the World Bank
as revealing a “technologic optimism bordering on determinism” (114).
The early policy rhetoric within the United States conceptualized the digital divide in similarly dichotomous
WHO’S RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DIGITAL DIVIDE?
terms. In 2000, the U.S. Department of Commerce noted
that:
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[Some individuals] have the most powerful computers,
the best telephone service and fastest internet service, as
well as a wealth of content and training relevant to their
lives. . . . Another group of people don’t have access to the
newest and the best computers, the most reliable telephone
service or the fastest or most convenient Internet services.
The difference between these two groups is . . . the Digital
Divide.3 (Selwyn 2004, 344)
This understanding of the digital divide, based entirely
on access, was reinforced by the NTIA reports, which
indicated that, despite high overall penetration rates of
ICT, the distribution of Internet use was systematically
uneven. Demonstration of this inequity was measured exclusively in terms of the penetration of personal computers and Internet connections into particular populations,
that is, correlations between Internet access and demographic indicators. According to Stevenson (2009), these
same rhetorical frameworks trickled down into an array
of reports on public computing in libraries, philanthropic
efforts to improve access, and elated information policy
debates. Similar patterns were highlighted in commercial
reports and in early academic research at the time, thus
reinforcing this conceptualization of the digital divide exclusively in terms of a disparity in access (Norris 2001;
Reddick, Boucher, and Groseilliers 2000).
Framing the Digital Divide as a Disparity of Skills
Material access to computers and network infrastructure
has long been the dominant discursive framework for international and national policymakers addressing the digital
divide. Yet as the results on the ground proved unsatisfactory, the focus on access has come under increasing
scrutiny, particularly in the interaction between policymakers and other actors, including representatives of the
technology industries, civil society, and most notably the
academic research community.
As an academic subject, the digital divide has garnered
a considerable amount of attention. As van Dijk (2006)
notes, much of the early work consisted of gathering empirical evidence of these inequalities, efforts that entirely
embraced the notion that the gap was one of material access to the technology. Most of the scholarly debate that
emerged around this research focused on identifying the
digital divide’s component dimensions (see for example
Barzilai-Nahon 2006; Mossberger et al. 2003; Warschauer
2002) and the appropriate methods of measurement (see,
e.g., Chinn and Fairlie 2004; DiMaggio, Hargittai, Celeste,
and Shafer 2004; van Dijk and Hacker 2003; Vehovar,
Sicherl, Husing, and Dalnicar 2006).
However, much of the recent work on the digital divide has been an increasingly pointed critique of the “access” view of the digital divide and the simple “haves
95
versus have-nots” dichotomy it implies. Part of this critique is that “digital divide” is too simple an analytical
concept: Some suggest that the digital divide should be
understood as a series of divides (Barzilai-Nahon 2006;
Meredyth and Thomas 2002) or inequalities (DiMaggio
et al. 2004), while others prefer viewing it as a continuum
(Warschauer 2002, 2003) or spectrum (Lenhart and Horrigan 2003). Some also challenged the attention to access
as determinist, utopian, and naı̈ve, warning that the evident demographic disparities have to do with more than
just the presence or absence of the technology, and do
not simply disappear as ICTs and Internet connectivity
become more ubiquitous (van Dijk 2006; Gunkel 2003).
Others have attempted to link the digital divide to the larger
forces that perpetuate resource disparities: Some see the
digital divide as an element of broader waves of political
and economic development (Norris 2001; Pohjola 2001;
Warschauer 2003), while others see the divide as a product
of cultural imperialism (Chomsky 2004), Westernization
(Schiller 1992), or an emerging power bloc within the
information industry (Chomsky 2004; Schiller 1992).
Most compelling, many critics of the access frame
have noted that it overlooks the question of skills and
the societal resources that provide them (Selwyn 2004;
Warschauer 2003; van Dijk and Hacker 2003; van Dijk
2006; Hargittai 2002). The emphasis on access may suit
policy debates well because it offers a clean and measurable index of the problem (Barzilai-Nahon 2006), and
because it implies that merely installing the necessary
technical infrastructure will somehow solve it. However,
just because a household or a community has Internet access does not mean they are adequately prepared to use
it, or to use it in a meaningful enough way to reap its
benefits. Hargittai (2002), for example, conducted a series
of experiments measuring both formal and substantial information skills—operationalizing skill as the ability to
search for and find different types of information online,
which she argued is a fundamental enabler of productive
use of the Internet. Her research revealed significant differences in effective use of ICTs in practice, particularly by
age, prior experience with technology, and education level,
among subjects who all had available access to the Internet. Subsequent work has catalogued a broader array of
skill types that, in our contemporary information context,
might be relevant to ensuring that users are able to materially benefit from the Internet (van Dijk 2006) or engage
in capital-enhancing activities (DiMaggio et al. 2004).
This “skills” frame has, to some degree, diffused into
the policy community, to the point where we consider it an
available alternative frame in the broader public discourse
on the issue. For example, in 2002 the UN Conference
on Trade and Development introduced measures of information literacy as part of their index of ICT development
(Philippa 2003). Other international agencies have also
begun to enrich their indices of information technology
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D. EPSTEIN ET AL.
adoption with data on technological literacy and uses
of ICT (Barzilai-Nahon 2006). The World Summit on
Information Society outcome documents listed not only
access but also “necessary skills and knowledge” as
essential requirements for an “inclusive information
society” (ITU 2005).
Similar sentiment can be found in U.S. domestic policy discourse as well. Not surprisingly, higher education
policy has aggressively adopted the skills framework. In
2000 the Association of College and Research Libraries
adopted “Information Literacy Competency Standards for
Higher Education,” which spell out the skills necessary to
locate, evaluate, and use information in an efficient manner. These standards were also endorsed by the American
Association for Higher Education and the Council of Independent Colleges (ACRL 2000). But this skills frame goes
well beyond the university. The Federal Communications
Commission’s expansive 2010 National Broadband Plan,
for example, lists three elements of bridging the digital divide: availability of infrastructure, affordability of infrastructure, and digital literacy skills. Toward that third goal,
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed a publicly funded “National Digital Literacy Corps”
(FCC 2010).
The policymaking community continues to focus on the
more quantifiable and actionable aspects of the material
diffusion of ICTs. Muir and Oppenheim (2002), highlighting universal access as a pivotal principle guiding American policymakers, cite Congressional statements such as
this:
The opportunity for people to participate in economic,
political and cultural life depends on their ability to access
and use communication and information services. Individuals need skills and tools to locate the communication pathways, information and audience in timely fashion and in an
appropriate format. (269)
Courtright and Robbin (2001) explore the symbolic language employed by U.S. policy communities by examining attributed quotes in the five major U.S. newspapers
during the year 2000. Focusing on how they define the
problem, they show that “most of the stakeholders defined
the digital divide as a lack of ‘access’ to computers and
the Internet. . . . Many stakeholders added dimensions of
skills and education as important to the problem definition” (3–4). The breakdown of their findings is particularly
interesting: While 100 percent of government stakeholder
statements define the digital divide as a matter of access
and 78 percent of them interpret it also as a matter of
skills, only a small percentage (11 percent) of government
stakeholder statements related to “deeper social and economic issues.” Similarly, among the statements attributed
to industry stakeholders, almost all (86 percent) viewed
the digital divide as a matter of access, a bit more than
half (57 percent) as skills, and none as “deeper social and
economic issues.”
LOCATING RESPONSIBILITY FOR BRIDGING
THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
Framing the digital divide in terms of access or in terms
of skills can do more than simply characterize the problem; it can also provide subtle cues as to the manner by
which it should be solved, and who is most responsible
for doing so. Frames do not simply name a problem; they
offer it a rich conceptual terrain, including presumptions
about the manner of the problem at hand, how it came
to be, and what kind of steps might be necessary to rectify it. Defining the digital divide as a problem of access
to ICTs may imply that those who can provide or help
subsidize the technology, particularly government and/or
corporations, are responsible for funding infrastructure
and increasing access. Alternatively, defining the digital
divide in terms of each person’s capacity to use information technology effectively may suggest that responsibility
lies in the hands of individuals and educational institutions, those who could help pursue the necessary “digital
literacy.”
Others have proposed (but not tested) this hypothesis, as they note the intricate rhetorical formations that
have marked this issue. Kvasny and Truex (2001) conducted a critical discourse analysis of speeches given during the White House “New Markets Tour,” in which President Clinton and administration officials, accompanied by
high-ranking policymakers and industry representatives,
spoke to historically underdeveloped communities in East
Palo Alto, Harlem, Appalachia, and the Navaho Nation.
They note a shift in Clinton’s rhetoric, as the NTIA began
to describe the digital divide not as a persistent inequity
but as an inexorably closing gap, from a rhetoric of “digital
divide” to one of “digital opportunity.” This subtle change
discursively shifts the implied responsibility: Once the
digital divide was redefined as an “opportunity,” it seemed
to fall more to the individual to act on it. Kvasny and
Truex suggest that the public may internalize this rhetorical logic, so that resolving the digital divide becomes
perceived as their own personal responsibility. As such,
they offer not just insight into how the digital divide has
been constructed in public discourse; they open the question of how it potentially may influence perceptions of the
problem.
In a study comparing a selection of key U.S. and
EU policy documents, Stewart, Gil-Egui, Tian, and Pileggi (2006) suggest that, to the extent that the documents regularly emphasized the economic potential of
ICT diffusion, over time terms such as “access” and “commerce” increasingly merged into a single semantic cluster.
They assert that this shifts responsibility for bridging the
digital divide from the government to the private sector.
Kvasny and Truex (2001) also noted that the discourse
regarding the “new economy” regularly emphasizes the
close cooperation between the public and the private
WHO’S RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DIGITAL DIVIDE?
sectors in bridging the digital divide. For example, in his
speech to the Federal Communications Bar Association,
Assistant Secretary Rohde (2000) asserted that:
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A top goal of the Administration is to close the digital
divide and ensure that all Americans can share in the benefits
of the telecommunications revolution. To achieve this goal,
we must remain faithful to the pro-competitive principles of
the Act and successfully establish a universal service system
that is consistent with the Act’s vision to ensure access to
advanced telecommunications and information services.
Theirs is an important reminder that responsibility may
not be a singular assignment among static players;
discursive framing may itself change the degree to
which different actors are opposed or paired in their
efforts.
We were able to locate only one previous research effort that attempted to link the framing of the digital divide in policy discourse to the public perceptions of the
issue. Clark, Demont-Heinrich, and Webber (2004) explored public perceptions of digital divide in the United
States as part of a larger study based on interviews with
seventy people from twenty families. Their findings reveal a set of recurring narratives that correspond to the
policy discourse described earlier. The first narrative apprehends the technology in a deterministic way, emphasizing the “inevitability of computers in the future of everyday life and its economics” (531). Another focused on
education perspectives, particularly for children and related to their future employment opportunities. The third
perceived the adoption of ICT as a function of consumer
choice.
These categories tell a story similar to that of the discourse of policymakers. We can find technocratic and deterministic views of technology, as well as a growing utilitarian view of ICTs as enablers of economic activity.
However, the main finding of Clark, Demont-Heinrich,
and Webber (2004) was that individualism was the dominant narrative in people’s perception of digital divide.
Those of both lower and higher socioeconomic status
tended to attribute the responsibility for bridging the digital divide to individuals rather than to government or other
institutions, whether it was described in terms of skills or
physical access. This tendency was partly explained by
their view of ICTs as a “luxury related to entertainment
and consumer choice, rather than necessary for participation in contemporary society” (535). The researchers
explain this contradiction by noting the growing dominance of market forces in ICT diffusion processes and
the internalization of marketing messages about ICT diffusion by the public. Clark and her colleagues’ concerns
about the commercial efforts to bridge the digital divide
are similar to those sounded by Stewart and his colleagues
(2006).
97
EXPLICATING FRAMING EFFECTS ON
PERCEPTIONS OF DIGITAL DIVIDE
As noted earlier, research has demonstrated that “frames
in communication,” strategically developed and deployed
within policy debates or in the media, may influence public understanding and perceptions of an issue, problem, or
event by offering “frames in thought” (Chong and Druckman 2007; Nelson, Oxley, and Clawson 1997; Pan and
Kosicki 2005). To demonstrate the connection between
the framing of the digital divide and the understanding of
it by the public, correlation between the dominant frames
and the common perceptions can get us only so far. While
the studies looking at digital divide policy discourse have
only hypothesized its repercussions for public perception
of the issue, we would like to explore this claim, by drawing on framing theory to actually test how the public may
react to different policy frames of the digital divide as a
policy matter.
One way that frames may influence public perceptions
is by influencing the perceived treatment responsibility
for an issue, a term Iyengar uses to distinguish “who
or what has the power to alleviate (or forestall alleviation of) the problem” (Iyengar 1994, 8). Moreover, “People think about responsibility instinctively, and attribution of responsibility represents a powerful psychological
cue” (10), a cue Iyengar argues has an effect on people’s
subsequent opinions about that particular issue. Assuming a memory-based model of opinion formation, frames
may influence perceptions of responsibility by making
either new or existing considerations more accessible or
more applicable—in other words, a framing effect (Chong
and Druckman 2007; Iyengar 1994; Nelson, Oxley, and
Clawson 1997).
We aim to demonstrate through an experimental manipulation how the two dominant policy interpretations of
the digital divide may influence individual attributions of
responsibility for addressing the issue: in other words, the
framing effect of exposure to the “access” and “skills”
frames. If the evidence suggests that characterizing the
digital divide as an issue of access or of skill, even just
once, can shift people’s perception of responsibility in
that moment, it is probable that the pervasive and persistent framing of the issue across the public discourse would
have similar, and perhaps cumulative, consequence over
time (Scheufele 1999; Scheufele and Tewksbury 2007).
More specifically, we propose the following hypotheses:
H1: Framing the digital divide in terms of access to information technology will increase the likelihood of individuals
attributing treatment responsibility to governmental and industry actors.
H2: Framing the digital divide in terms of the skills necessary to use information technology effectively willincrease
98
D. EPSTEIN ET AL.
the likelihood of individuals attributing treatment responsibility to individuals and educational institutions.
As the dominant and the most persistent discursive framework, the access paradigm has been adopted primarily by
the governmental actors and the private sector. Over time,
in many people’s eyes, physical access and economic affordability of the Internet have become a necessity and
a basic right. At the same time, skill development is not
obligatory in the public sense. Although it has been picked
up by the higher education circles, it is still viewed as an
optional, not key, tenet in college requirements, thus highlighting the individual responsibility.
EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY
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Data Collection
In order to test our hypotheses, we conducted a framing experiment embedded in a national omnibus poll conducted
by the Survey Research Institute at Cornell University between March 30, 2007, and May 3, 2007. The sample
population consisted of U.S. citizens, at least 18 years
of age, from randomly selected households. Within each
household, respondents were randomly selected. In total,
500 interviews were completed. The response rate was
23.9 percent and the cooperation rate 55.1 percent, which
comports with AAPOR standards.4
Telephone respondents answered a series of questions
regarding their Internet use, followed by the experimental
manipulation and attribution questions; questions regarding demographics and political orientation were asked at
the end of the survey. The telephone interviewing software
randomly assigned respondents to one of two possible experimental framing conditions. The first framing condition
(FC1) defined the digital divide in terms of access to technology and read:
FC1: I am going to read you one definition of digital divide: “the gap between those who have access to information
and communication technologies, and those who do not.”
The second framing condition (FC2) defined the digital
divide in terms of capacity to use technology, and read:
FC2: I am going to read you one definition of digital
divide: “the gap between those who have the skills to use information and communication technologies effectively, and
those who do not.”
Two hundred and forty-five subjects were exposed to FC1,
and the remaining 255 subjects to FC2. Once exposed to
their framing condition, all subjects were asked the same
attribution question: “Given the definition read above, in
your opinion where does the primary responsibility for
bridging the digital divide lie?” The subjects in each condition were asked to choose one answer from the same
standardized response options,5 which were read in their
entirety to each respondent, including an “other category”
in which they could specify their own attribution.
Data Analysis
A stringent test of the experimental hypotheses was conducted by employing a multivariate analysis. Even though
respondents were randomly assigned to the experimental
conditions, a multivariate analysis accounts for any incidental variations in sample characteristics between the
two groups, and compares the influence of the experimental message frame on subject attribution controlling for
other sociodemographic or ideological factors. Since the
dependent variable in the experiment was a categorical
variable (list of actors responsible for addressing the digital divide), a multinomial logistic regression was used.
Multinomial logistic models simultaneously estimate the
models for comparison among all categories of the outcome variable (Long 1997).
Independent Variables
Four sets of independent variables were included in the
multinomial logistic analysis. Demographic indicators included measures of age, gender, race, household income,
and education. Age was measured with a continuous variable with a respondent range of 18 to 93 years of age (M =
49.8, SD = 16.0). Gender is dummy coded with men coded
high (47.0 percent). Race is dummy coded, split between
whites and non-whites, with whites coded high (75.2 percent). Household income was measured on a nine-point
scale ranging from less than $10,000 to $150,000 and up
(M = 5.5, SD = 4.4). Education was measured on an
eight-point scale, ranging from none/grade 1 to 8 to graduate degree (M = 5.0, SD = 1.6).
Political orientation was assessed by a single item asking respondents their political party affiliation on a sevenpoint scale ranging from strong Democrat to strong Republican (M = 3.6, SD = 2.1).
Frequency of Internet use assessed the average number
of hours per day spent on the Internet by asking respondents, “On a typical day, how much total time do you spend
on the Internet/World Wide Web? Include any time spent
sending and receiving e-mail, surfing Web pages, chatting
with others, buying products or services, watching video,
blogging, downloading or sharing files, etc.” (M = 1.7,
SD = 2.4).
Lastly, to test the influence of the experimental manipulation after taking into account the preceding controls,
a dichotomous variable indicating the experimental frame
condition to which a respondent was assigned (with 1 =
skills condition [FC2] and 0 = access condition [FC1])
was included the multivariate analysis.
WHO’S RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DIGITAL DIVIDE?
99
TABLE 1
Treatment responsibility for bridging the digital divide
Digital divide defined
in terms of
“access” (%),
n = 245
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Actors
Individual people
Federal government
Local government
Local schools
Colleges or universities
Large corporations
Local businesses
National foundations and
nonprofit organizations
Local community groups
Other
Don’t know/refused
Total:
Digital divide
defined in terms
of “skills” (%),
n = 255
Total across
conditions (%),
N = 500
26.9
27.3
5.3
5.7
2.4
4.1
4.1
36.5
21.6
6.7
10.2
3.1
1.6
1.6
31.8
24.4
6.0
8.0
2.8
2.8
2.8
3.3
1.6
7.8
11.4
100
0.4
2.0
4.3
12.2
100
1.8
1.8
6.0
11.8
100
Dependent Variable
As previously described, the dependent variable for the
experiment was the respondents’ attributions of primary
responsibility for bridging the digital divide. The distribution of selected actors for both framing conditions are
presented in table 1. Individuals, the federal government,
and educational institutions (especially “local schools”)
were the three most commonly cited set of responsible
actors across both conditions. Relatively few respondents
selected private corporations, nonprofits, or local community groups as most responsible.
Based on the theoretical focus of the hypotheses and
the requirementthat predicted categories contain enough
respondents for analysis, some response categories from
the original dependent measure were collapsed, creating five primary categories for the multinomial logistic modeling. The new dependent categorical variable
was composed of five sets of actors: individual people
(31.1 percent of valid responses), government (combining respondents who cited federal and local—34.5 percent), educational institutions (combining respondents
who cited local schools and colleges/universities—12.2
percent), and industry actors (combining respondents who
cited local businesses and large corporations—6.3 percent), and a residual “other” category (combining respondents who cited nonprofits, local groups, “other” actors—
10.9 percent).
TABLE 2
Influence of experimental manipulation on treatment responsibility for digital divide
Treatment responsibility category
Individual people
Educational institutions
Economic actors
Government
Other actors
Individual people
Educational institutions
Industry actors
Government
n.a.
.29 (.35)
−1.43 (.51)∗∗
−.57 (.27)∗
−1.10 (.39)∗∗
n.a.
−1.71 (.54)∗∗∗
−.85 (.35)∗∗
−1.39 (.45)∗∗
n.a.
−.86 (.49)
.32 (.57)
n.a.
−.54 (.17)
Note. Significance indicated by ∗∗∗ p ≤ .001, ∗∗ p ≤ .01, ∗ p ≤ .05. Reported is the influence (unstandardized coefficients
and standard error) of the frame condition indicator on the likelihood of respondent selecting treatment responsibility category
versus reference category, controlling for age, gender, education, race, household income, frequency of Internet use, and political
orientation.
100
D. EPSTEIN ET AL.
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RESULTS
Since multinomial logistic regression simultaneously estimates models for comparison among all categories of
the outcome variable, a reference category is required for
the analysis. In other words, model coefficients indicate
whether an independent variable increases or decreases the
likelihood of belonging to a specific category as compared
to a reference category. As the reference category varies,
the influence of an independent variable on the likelihood
of category selection will vary accordingly. Thus, for our
analysis, we report the influence of the framing manipulation, while controlling for all other independent variables
(Internet use, demographics, political orientation) in the
model for each set of possible categorical comparisons
(e.g., individuals vs. government, individual vs. economic
actors, government vs. educational actors). In total, four
versions of the multinomial logistic model were estimated
for ten combinations of category comparisons, in order
to demonstrate how the framing manipulation influenced
respondent attribution.
The results of the multinomial logistic model are presented in table 2. The total explained Nagelkerke (1991)
variance (a pseudo R 2 employed as an indicator of model
fit) for the multinomial logistic model, with controls
and framing manipulation indicator included in the final
model, was 19.6 percent. Furthermore, the inclusion of the
framing manipulation significantly improved the model fit
(χ 2 (4) = 21.782, p < .000) after including control variables and accounted for 5.1 percent of the incremental
Nagelkerke variance.
In total, 380 cases were included in the analysis after listwise deletion. As indicated by table 2, the frame
manipulation indicator (with skills condition coded high)
decreased the likelihood of respondents attributing responsibility for bridging the digital divide to the government
(b = –.57, p < .05; b = –.85, p < .01) and economic
actors (b = –1.43, p < .001; b = –1.71, p < .001) as
compared to individuals and educational institutions, respectively. In addition, the framing manipulation did not
influence the probability of selecting individuals as compared to educational institutions, nor industry actors as
compared to the government. These experimental results
are consistent with both H1 and H2, with the probability of
selecting the categories of individuals/educational institutions or government/industry actors significantly varying
depending on how the definition of the digital divide is
framed.
Beyond the effect of the framing manipulation, the only
other variable significantly contributing to a better model
fit was the respondent’s political orientation (χ 2 (4) =
16.814, p < .001), though to a somewhat lesser degree
in comparison to the framing manipulation. The influence
of political orientation on respondent attribution was note-
worthy in several respects. First, conservative political orientation decreased the probability of selecting educational
actors (b = –21, p < .05) and the government (b = –20,
p < .01) as responsible for addressing the digital divide,
as compared to individuals. Conversely, conservative political orientation increased the likelihood of attributing
responsibility to industry actors (b = .32, p < .01; b =
.32, p < .01) as compared to government and educational
institutions, respectively. In other words, conservative respondents favored individuals or industry actors as the
primary responsible actors for addressing digital divide,
over government or educational institutions.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Limitations of Experiment
Before we discuss some of our conclusions and implications from the overall study’s findings, some of the
limitations of the experimental methodology should be
reviewed. The primary limitation of the study was a lack
of robust measurement. Due to resource limitations, additional measurement of other possible independent variables, such as respondents’ knowledge and awareness
about the digital divide previous to the survey, their attitudes toward technology more generally, or more subtle
details of their own use of information technology, was
not possible. Likewise, more robust measurement of dependent variables such as issue importance, policy preferences, and attribution would have contributed to the study.
Moving forward, future research not only can provide
more robust measurement of both independent and dependent variables, but also can test more nuanced versions of
these and other frames
Furthermore, we acknowledge that the experimental
manipulation was rather modest and subtle, and accordingly so were the experimental effects on audience attribution. Respondents were exposed to a single preceding
sentence and limited to verbal cues over the phone. In contrast, many framing experiments often attempt to simulate
“real-world” exposure to competing frames by employing
more robust stimuli like simulated newspaper articles or
multimedia advertisements that may include a range of
textual, visual, and audio framing devices. Subjects may
also be exposed more than once to such stimuli.
Nevertheless, our analysis demonstrated that our rather
modest framing manipulation significantly influenced how
audiences make decisions about which political, social, or
industry actors are most responsible for addressing the
digital divide. The framing manipulation accounted for
more than one-quarter of the total explained Nagelkerke
variance in the multinomial regression model (5.1 percent
out of 19.6 percent). Thus, we argue that our experimental results demonstrate ongoing and repeated exposure to
WHO’S RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DIGITAL DIVIDE?
“interpretative packages” of the digital divide in a “richer”
format such as media reports, political discourse, and advertisements (i.e., “frames in communication,” would have
a rather substantial and meaningful impact of audience
“frames in thought” about the digital divide).
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Framing Policy, Implying Responsibility
Our analysis suggests that framing the digital divide in
terms of access or of skills may provoke different patterns of attribution, urging different attitudes toward particular government initiatives when it comes to gathering
support for a policy. This is not a shocking conclusion—
policymakers have long known that care must be taken
in selling policy to citizens in terms that will resonate
with them. But it does offer empirical evidence indicating
not only that framing is important for how citizens judge
the importance of an issue, but also that who they categorically see as responsible for addressing it. This adds a
wrinkle to the process of selling a policy: A legislator may
attempt to convince voters of the merit of a particular bill
or regulation, but if in the process they also convince their
audience that it’s not government’s problem, they may be
undercutting support for their intervention.
Those who have criticized the digital divide rhetoric for
focusing too exclusively on access have argued that policy interventions based on this assumption will necessarily
fall short, building infrastructure while quietly retaining
and reifying persistent inequities in information literacy.
We add to this a second concern, that framing the digital divide in terms of access may also be swaying public
opinion about who is most responsible for addressing the
problem. To the extent that U.S. and European policymakers have overwhelmingly characterized the digital divide
as a question of access, and regularly presented a partnership between the public and the private sectors as the force
best suited to addressing this problem, they may be subtly
undermining nontraditional community based initiatives
by convincing individuals that these are not as relevant to
the problem.
Ironically, there may be an unintended consequence of
those who argue for a greater emphasis on skills. While
making a worthy and well-intentioned point, those who
champion the “skills” frame for the digital divide issue
may be unwittingly helping to move the perceived responsibility for it from the domain of the government to
that of individuals or educational institutions. To the extent
that a “skills” frame for characterizing the digital divide
suggests that responsibility lies with individual citizens or
educational institutions, it may diminish the public’s call
for public policies or collective efforts to address the problem. By framing the issue in a way that assigns responsibility to individuals and educational institutions, they
may be helping to put the burden on those with the least
101
resources to make a difference. Many of those with the
financial and cultural capital to avail themselves of ICTs
and seek out the skills necessary to use them effectively
have done so; those who still lack access or skill tend
to have less capital and less political clout; highlighting
their needs may actually be undermining the public sentiment necessary to call on government to help. Institutions
of higher education may have an important role to play,
and arguably should be thinking about their public mission in terms of broad information equities in a modern
world. But unlike governmental agencies, educational institutions are not in the same kind of position to pursue infrastructural improvements, subsidize large-scale material
improvements, address the political contexts on a national
and international scale that help these inequities persist, or
begin to rectify the broader sociopolitical inequities that
undergird the digital divide.
And though our manipulation does not test for this, the
emerging discourse of digital “opportunity” that Kvasny
and Truex and others have identified could have similar consequences for public opinion. To the extent that
the digital divide is not only portrayed as closing, but is
framed as therefore one that belongs in the domain of private enterprise, we might expect shifts in public opinion
about the responsibility for resolving digital inequities toward both private enterprises and also, more importantly,
toward the individual. Iyengar’s (1994) study of the assignment of treatment responsibility for public issues like
poverty, racial inequity, and antiterrorism noted a strong
variation, depending on the discursive frame, between assigning responsibility to society or to the individual. To
the extent that an issue was suggested to be endemic and
structural, it seemed to lie at society’s door to deal with;
when the discursive frame suggested an episodic problem,
more often people saw it as the individual’s responsibility
to handle or not. The language of “digital opportunity,”
rather than persistent inequity, could very likely move
public opinion in the same direction, impacting not only
the kind of policy initiatives proposed but also whether
the public would support any government initiatives at all.
Moreover, the combination of emphasis on private corporations and the individual may be moving this frame away
from the individual as citizen, toward an understanding
of the individual as consumer (Gandy 2002). As such,
market actors may appear to share no responsibility; they
merely provide the “digital opportunities” that consumers
may choose to take advantage of.
Divides, Digital and Political
Our findings also serve as a reminder that the “public” is not a monolithic and homogenous audience
when it comes to defining public problems. Perceived
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D. EPSTEIN ET AL.
responsibility for the digital divide differed not only in
relation to how it was defined, but by political orientation. Our finding matches similar findings around other
contested policy issues where the partisan disagreement is
not merely about different policy approaches, but different
attributions of responsibility and means of addressing the
issue at hand (Gollust, Lantz, and Ubel 2009; Hardisty,
Johnson, and Weber 2010). This suggests that different
social groups may be more effectively addressed using
different conceptualizations of the digital divide, depending on the desired outcome. For example, when communicating about ICT policy to a conservative audience, an
emphasis on the role of government may be counterproductive, whereas emphasizing the role of individual citizens or corporations may resonate. The fact that political
affiliation was the only significant factor in our analysis
other than the framing manipulation suggests that it may
play a distinctive role in perceptions of information and
communication technology more broadly.
In the United States at least, the digital divide and
broader questions of information access have become
politicized in recent years. Soon after President George
W. Bush’s election to the office, the Bush administration
quickly moved to close a number of programs initiated
by the Clinton administration. In 2002 the administration
cut the budgets of two programs—the Education Department’s Community Technology Centers Program, which
helped finance computer activity centers for students and
adult education, and the Commerce Department’s Technology Opportunities Program, which provided money
and services to organizations that need a technology boost
(Schwartz 2002)—implying that the digital divide in these
cases had been already “bridged” by the market forces.
The NTIA reports issued during the Bush administration focused on “digital inclusion,” even replacing the title
“Falling through the Net” with the more positive “A Nation Online.” And, to the extent that the discussion shifted
from Internet access to high-speed broadband access, the
government imperative was lessened and the discourse
continued to evolve.
In 2004 both U.S. presidential candidates took stands
on the digital divide. While President Bush emphasized
the economic benefits of greater broadband penetration,
Senator Kerry advocated for more government-sponsored
initiatives (Wilgoren and Sanger 2004). Kerry called for
defining broadband access as a universal service, thus subjecting it to federal regulation and including it in government programs that subsidize service in rural and underserved areas (Eberhart 2004), whereas Bush focused on
spurring market actors to invest in network infrastructure.
In other words, viewing the market as the primary actor responsible for bridging the digital divide was more a
Republican prerogative, while the Democratic argument
leaned toward a more federally managed approach.
Similar tendencies reappeared in the 2008 presidential
campaign: Senator Barack Obama spoke of the federal
government’s responsibility to encourage access through
subsidy, while Senator John McCain championed private
investment—although he did not discount public intervention on a local, community level if market actors failed.
The issue of information skills also appeared in the literature of both campaigns, under the broader umbrella of
enhancing science and math education. It is telling that the
two campaigns did not differ on the basis of their choice
of how to define the problem; they both used both frames.
The fundamental difference between the two campaigns
was not in framing communications policy in terms of
either “access” or “skills,” but in assigning responsibility,
to government institutions on the one hand or individuals
and the market on the other, for addressing gaps in both.
As persistent a problem as the digital divide is, the
political divide in the United States is also a substantial
factor in how ICTs are characterized, or framed, in policy
and public discourse. In turn, the competitive framing and
packaging of the digital divide by policymakers does have
implications for how the public perceives the problem,
and to whom they assign responsibility—which then may
strengthen or weaken the political capital of these same
policy actors who are offering competing interpretations
about how to either define or address digital inequalities.
In the next policy cycle, the character of the inequities
that plague access to and use of ICTs may have again
shifted as technologies change, policy efforts materialize
or collapse, and economic resources dwindle or grow. The
discourse about the digital divide may also have shifted, as
frames grow or diminish in significance, or as related debates around Internet neutrality or open-access publishing
offer competing paradigms. What will remain constant is
that the way the digital divide is defined and interpreted
by policymakers and public alike will depend in part on
the intensely partisan divides within which such policy
debates occur.
NOTES
1. International Telecommunication Union, “Internet Indicators:
subscribers, users and broadband subscribers”; http://www.itu.int/
ITUD/icteye/Indicators/Indicators.aspx.
2. United Nations, “Millennium Development Goals,” http://
www.un.org/millenniumgoals.
3. Digitaldivide.gov’s “About the Digital Divide” Web site is no
longer available.
4. Using AAPOR standard calculation #4, see http://
www.aapor.org/Standard Definitions/1481.htm.
5. Response options were “federal government,” “local (i.e., city,
town, county) governments,” “colleges or universities,” “large corporations,” “local businesses,” “individual people,” “local schools,”
“national foundations and nonprofit organizations,” “local community
groups,” “something else, please specify.”
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