Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
users are blacks, although they comprise 79 % of the total population (Brown and
Licker
2003
).
African internet cafés are commonly found in commercial districts frequented
by (typically young) tourists, students, and business executives; exhibit ownership
structures ranging from sole proprietorships to international chains; and charge
access prices that vary widely among and within countries (Mutula
2003
;
Esharenana et al.
2003
). Because many cafés derive a substantial share of their
profits from non-Africans, their fees are often too high to make them accessible to
low income people. Based on observations of cybercafés in Uganda, Mwesige
(
2003
) argues that because they are affordable only to the relatively well-off, they
may be accentuating, not decreasing, the digital divide within countries. However,
as the prices of internet connectivity have fallen, cybercafés are sprouting up in
some African slums as well, and are most Africans' primary means of access.
Some African governments have promoted the growth of cybercafés in slums, such
as South African's Universal Service Agency efforts in the Khayaletsha slum near
Cape Town (Mancebo
2003
). In addition to for-profit cybercafés, many non-profit
and non-governmental organizations have established networks of neighborhood
telecenters (Mayanja
2003
), which have played catalytic roles in community
development. Ghana, for example, has a well-developed system (Falch
2004
). In
Tanzania,
state-subsidized
telecenters
have
complicated
the
geographies
of
inclusion and exclusion that normally arise from market forces (Mercer
2006
).
2.4.10 Latin America and the Caribbean
At the close of 2011, 234 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean used
the internet. The region exhibits a mean penetration rate of 40 %, higher than the
world average but considerably lower than the economically developed world.
Penetration rates varied considerably, with the highest consistently found in the
Caribbean, the wealthiest and best-connected region. In many respects, the most
well-connected parts of the greater Latin American region lay in the Caribbean,
including Puerto Rico but also places such as Antigua (with a rate penetration
greater than that of the U.S.), Barbados, and St. Lucia. In the 2000-2011 period,
more than 6.3 million Caribeños joined the global on-line community. Outside of
the Caribbean, Argentina leads Latin American penetration rates (with 67 %);
closely following are Chile (59.4 %), Uruguay (56 %), and Colombia (55.9 %).
Conversely, countries with the lowest penetration rates tend to be poor, including
the hemisphere's lowest, in Nicaragua (11.7 %), as well as Honduras (13.1 %),
and Cuba (15.4 %). Long marginalized ethnic minorities and impoverished resi-
dents of rural areas or urban barrios are unlikely to have access to the internet or
benefit much from its usage. For example, Friedman (
2005
, p. 12) quotes the
director of a network of rural women who notes ''peasant women do not use
computers and many do not know that this technology exists.'' The lines of digital
inclusion and exclusion are therefore often drawn on the same boundaries that
