IRMA-International.org: Creator of Knowledge
Information Resources Management Association
Advancing the Concepts & Practices of Information Resources Management in Modern Organizations

Free/Libre Open Source Software for Bridging the Digital Divide

Free/Libre Open Source Software for Bridging the Digital Divide
View Sample PDF
Author(s): Yu-Wei Lin (University of York, UK)
Copyright: 2008
Pages: 6
Source title: Global Information Technologies: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Felix B. Tan (Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-939-7.ch073

Purchase

View Free/Libre Open Source Software for Bridging the Digital Divide on the publisher's website for pricing and purchasing information.

Abstract

As some scholars claim, the digital divide, referring to the perceived gap between those who have access to the latest information technologies and those who do not, entails that not having access to this information is an economic and social handicap (Compaine, 2001). In software design, structured inequalities operate along the main axes of gender, race/ethnicity and class. Each of these in turn generates its own structure of unequal practices giving rise to institutionalised sexism, racism or class divisions/conflict. “Gender, race and class also crosscut each other in various complex ways, sometimes reinforcing and at other times weakening the impact of existing inequalities” (Cohen & Kennedy, 2000, p. 100). For instance, Webster’s research (1996) employing feminist approaches to study computer system designs addresses the issue of a male-dominated system design field, which continuously excludes female users’ needs, requirements, interests and values in the innovation process. She criticises that, “Human factors may be bolted onto existing methods of systems design, local and contingent knowledge of work and information handling processes held by users in an amorphous sense may now even be incorporated into the systems design process, but this does not create an awareness of the way in which skills and knowledge are defined in gender-divided terms” (p. 150).

Related Content

Christian Rainero, Giuseppe Modarelli. © 2025. 26 pages.
Beatriz Maria Simões Ramos da Silva, Vicente Aguilar Nepomuceno de Oliveira, Jorge Magalhães. © 2025. 21 pages.
Ann Armstrong, Albert J. Gale. © 2025. 19 pages.
Zhi Quan, Yueyi Zhang. © 2025. 21 pages.
Sanaz Adibian. © 2025. 19 pages.
Le Ngoc Quang, Kulthida Tuamsuk. © 2025. 21 pages.
Jorge Lima de Magalhães, Carla Cristina de Freitas da Silveira, Tatiana Aragão Figueiredo, Felipe Gilio Guzzo. © 2025. 17 pages.
Body Bottom