Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Germany, with 67 million netizens (82.7 %), has the largest national population
of users in Europe. Despite a relatively egalitarian social structure and government
policies aimed at ameliorating discrepancies in internet access, the German digital
divide persists. Younger residents are more likely to be users than older ones.
A schism remains entrenched between urban and rural areas for reasons that include
structural differences and individual characteristics (Schleife 2010 ). Regional
discrepancies also persist: whereas Berlin exhibits much higher usage than the
national average, Bavaria and the states of former East Germany lag behind.
France was relatively slow to adopt the internet, in part because of the legacy of
its older Minitel system and a lag in deregulating its telecommunications market
from the France Telecom monopoly. Today it harbors 50 million users, with a
penetration rate of 77 %. In the 2000s, marked discrepancies in internet access
were evident by income as well as between the largest metro areas and rural
regions. The French government tackled that country's digital divide aggressively,
including a program to offer 1.2 million of its poorest citizens a free PC with
internet connection (Sayer 2006 ) as well as a subsidy to reduce PC costs to
'' 1 € per day'' for university students. In contrast to the laissez faire attitude of the
U.S., the French also implemented street cyberkiosks, an annual internet festival,
and subsidies for technicians to help with home internet installment. Nonetheless,
broadband usage has been delayed there, and is roughly the same as the median
rate of the EU.
In Britain the internet diffused rapidly, and today includes 84 % of the popu-
lation. The British digital divide follows the familiar contours of age, income,
education, and urban location, reflecting and reinforcing sociospatial differentials
in opportunities for learning (Eynon 2009 ). British internet use was amplified by a
national policy encouraging broadband use was adopted in 2003, when the tech-
nology rapidly grew in popularity to include 85 % of the country's netizens.
British residents under age 25 were three times as likely as those over 65 to use the
web (Helsper et al. 2008 ). Unlike the U.S. and Scandinavian countries, in which
women are the largest pools of users, the digital divide in Britain is characterized
by heavier male usage. As in all industrial countries, mobile internet access is
growing rapidly in popularity. Non-internet users in Britain report they do not
engage with cyberspace because they are ''not interested,'' find the technology
confusing, or cannot afford access, pointing to a mixture of digital choice and
digital divide (Reisdorf 2011 ).
The European Union has adopted a series of telecommunications policies
designed to promote internet access, particularly the diffusion of broadband. In
2005, the European Commission launched i2010, an initiative promoted to
enhance internet access across the continent. This goal was explicitly articulated in
the Lisbon Strategy of 2010, which was implemented with the broader aim of
accelerating the continent's shift into a knowledge-based economy. The European
Digital Agenda stipulates that by 2013 all EU citizens should have access to
broadband internet, a goal unlikely to be met.
In all the Scandinavian nations, including Iceland, a well-educated ''leisure
class'' (Florida 2004 ) has become adept at using information technology for a wide
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