The Digital Divide and Political Campaigns

If the presidential candidates had a debate on YouTube and you didn't have internet access, did it really happen? I was recently asked if the term digital divide was outdated. Here's an article that carries the argument that not only is it still relevant, but possibly worse than ever. In Binary American: Split in Two by a Digital Divide, the Washington Post's Juan Antonio Vargas explores the digital divide which still exists in many parts of the United States, denying equal opportunity for low-income and rural citizens to participate in the digital political revolution.

CTFC coined the term ZeroDivide to assert its belief that the digital divide exists as part of the larger set of social, economic, politial and cultural divides that condition the haves from the have-nots. Recent research published by the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at CSU-LA documents this situation in Los Angeles in the report Technology and Geographic Isolation. CTFC's programmatic focus on using technology to improve civic engagement acknowledges both the existing reality of the divide and the potential for technology to provide greater opportunities for communities to participate in public processes to definitively affect their own future.

Until politicians, government officials and businesses, in addition to the social sector address solutions to the digital and other divides, the question of the "dated-ness" of the digital divide remains itself a question.