Social Media Assignment 2) Review on 'Internet Diffusion and The Digital Divide: The Role of Policy-Making and Political Institutions' by Kenneth S. Rogerson and Daniel Milton

This chapter on ‘Internet diffusion and the digital divide’ explains the situation in several countries regarding their intention to develop technological infrastructure as well as creating new internet policies in their countries. The authors use several case studies from Estonia, Brazil, Singapore and the United States. These countries from different regions and different socioeconomic status represent a good comparison to one another given that they share very little similarities but at the same time one of their pursuits is very similar.
The internet has been considered a key aspect of social media and this set of countries has applied policies to expand its influence. In Brazil president Lula wanted to create a highly influential technological community in which software and internet was available for the masses, creating a developing unity among people and pushing society to have a minimum of 15% of the population with internet access, which supports the idea that “the higher the educational background the more people use the internet in an instrumental way” (Milton) which was part of Brazil’s “Computers for all” program. Estonia was also a role model using the internet, being in 2007 the only country that applied governmental voting through the internet, perhaps because it used to be the Cybernetics central of the Soviet Union (Milton) Nevertheless their objectives are clear and their intentions were to provide a fair digital divide across the nation, allowing in 2007 95% of the population to have access to the Internet.
Singapore had a much stricter domestic policy with the internet, they also shared an electronic pursuit hoping that in the 90s their ‘paperless’ campaign would impulse the country to share information through electronic channels however, information that they wished to control with their Computer Misuse Act they hoped to filter content to the public and in 2006 with their Cyber-watch they hoped to protect classified governmental information. In comparison to Brazil and Estonia, Singapore was more conservative and slightly more authoritarian, but nonetheless they sought to expand the influence of the Internet at home.
The United States showed a balance between Singapore, Brazil and Estonia. During the late 90s President Bill Clinton encouraged government funding for the Community Technology Centre, developing infrastructure and technological advances (Milton). On the other hand, with the new developments in the industry they also sought to protect public interest. With the Telecommunications Act in 1996 Congress wished to have a stricter policy filtering content which was later decided to be unconstitutional, which in 1997 later transformed into the Children Privacy Protection law which allowed parents to have more control and the information of certain webpages was filtered to protect minors.
Ultimately this chapter shows the importance of governmental intervention when it comes to the development of technology and infrastructure. With the support and funding of the public sector Internet can reach a much wider audience and provide information that is regulated protecting the public, which is an example of what Rogerson and Milton said at the beginning of the chapter “with economic development comes better access to internet and narrower socioeconomic differences between the media users.” (Milton)