Introduction: new frontiers of environmental governance - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 22

Table 1.2. The information divide

Daily
newspapers
per 1000 inh.
(2000)

Radios
per
1000 inh.
(2001)

Television
sets per
1000 inh.
(2002)

Personal
computers
per 1000 inh.
(2002)

Internet
users per
1000 inh.
(2002)

Low-income
countries

40 139 91 7.5 10

123 ∗ Middle-income

countries

360 326 45.4 80

High-income
countries

284 1266 735 466.9 364

∗ for upper-middle-income countries
Source: World Development Report 2004.

different on various cultural, economic and political indicators, these
OECD countries are still well linked to the informational networks of
the global economy. But what does informational governance mean for
what we could label information-poor environments?
The notion of information-poor environments points at a variety
of situations where environmental information, and the informational
processes linked to that are marginalised or suppressed. We can dis-
tinguish at least four ideal-typical forms of information-poor envi-
ronments, knowing that in reality these ideal types mix. First, we
have information-poor environments driven by economic constraints
(see Table 1.2 for some data). Economic limitations then restrict infor-
mational processes, whether it be collection of information, processing
of information, dissemination of information or access to information
by major groups in society. The digital divide falls often in this cate-
gory, but also shortages in monitoring programs and the limitations in
data processing and information publication and dissemination may
relate to economic shortcomings. Second, we have information-poor
environments caused by political constraints. Here political factors
and dynamics cause limitations in information collection, processing,
spreading, access and use. Undemocratic regimes, limitations for inde-
pendent NGOs to produce countervailing evidence, manipulations of
search machines on the Internet and limitations on information dis-
closure (such as those following 9/11) are all examples in which infor-
mation collection and informational processes are hindered or blocked