Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
this urban-rural digital divide largely reflects the government's emphasis on urban
areas as motors of economic growth and the unwillingness of China's ISPs to
invest in lower-income, and often lower-density, rural areas.
The Japanese internet included roughly 101 million users in 2011, with a
penetration rate of 80 %. Unlike China, but similar to the U.S. and Europe, the
bulk of Japanese access the web via personal computers at home; as a result,
internet cafes are less common. As with other Asian countries, Japan has invested
heavily in broadband applications: internet access speeds are 30 times faster than
in the U.S., and considerably cheaper, which have greatly facilitated cable tele-
vision and the government's efforts to promote e-commerce and telecommuting
(Harden
2007
). Moreover, Japan has seen its mobile internet usage surge to the
world's highest rate, which has surpassed the use of landlines (Ishii
2004
). Despite
these investments, Japan, too, exhibits a digital divide, with a disproportionate
concentration of users in the greater Tokyo-Yokohama and Osaka metropolitan
areas. The blogosphere is exceptionally popular in Japan: 80 % of the country's
netizens visit a blog once a month or so.
South Korea, among the world's most hard wired countries, has a remarkably
well developed internet infrastructure. (In contrast, in North Korea the internet is
all but forbidden, with the exception of a handful of government officials). With 40
million users in 2011, South Korea has a penetration rate of 82.7 %, the highest in
Asia (and higher than the U.S.). Seoul, the country's primate city, captures a large
proportion of the country's internet users (Hwang
2004
), and its netizens deploy
the web to a wider range of purposes than do those outside of the capital. To
mitigate the country's digital divide, the Korean government established a series of
''information model villages'' or e-villages. Many Koreans enjoy one of the 20,000
''PC bangs,'' local slang for internet cafes; computer gaming is enormously
popular (Schiesel
2006
), and games such as Starcraft have become a national
obsession, with professional players. Korean Starcraft champions such as Lim Yo-
Hwan or Hong Jin-Ho are national celebrities. The Korean government initiated
and supports the Korean Games Development and Promotion Institute, an agency
charged with encouraging and facilitating the gaming industry as a key strategic
industry within that country.
2.4.6 Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia exhibits enormous contrasts in internet use, ranging from hyper-
connected Singapore to Myanmar, in which 0.2 % are logged in. With highly
uneven rates of economic and population growth, as well as different national
policies toward internet adoption, this region exhibits some of the most marked
contrasts in internet use in the world. While all countries there experience digital
divides, their governments have consistently sought to address the issue through a
variety of policies with varying degrees of success (Tipton
2002
; Evers and Gerke
2004
).
