SPECIAL ISSUE: Media and Empowerment
ARTICLE
Measuring the dynamics of information societies: Empowering stakeholders amid the digital divide
Vesna Dolnicar, Katja Prevodnik, and Vasja Vehovar
Accurate insight into the emergence of information societies is essential not only for understanding the social effects of information and communication technologies, but also for empowering stakeholders to promptly and appropriately respond to the challenges they encounter. One much discussed challenge that is particularly in need of analytical clarity is digital divide, which is difficult to empirically elaborate given its complicated nature. It is prone to superficial interpretations that suit particular agendas. To address this problem, authors propose a methodology that integrates and upgrades the analysis of absolute change, relative change, and time distance into a general multi-dimensional approach. With this methodology, target audiences have an intuitively persuasive and methodologically sound instrument that could reinforce trust in digital divide studies. The approach is applied in evaluating the Internet penetration gap between Slovenia and Denmark, which often serves as a benchmark for policy making in Solvenia.