Howard, Philip N., Laura Busch, and Penelope Sheets. “Comparing Digital Divides: Internet Access and Social Inequality in Canada and the United States.” Canadian Journal of Communication 35, no. 1 (2010): 109-128. Abstract: What is the best way to measure and track the digital divide, in a comparative manner, over time? [...]
This data set covers the years 1990 through 2007 and contains two types of indicators for the global distribution of information, communication and technology (ICT) resources. The data includes gini coefficients for the distribution of Internet access within countries, and a technology diffusion index that weights the distribution of broadband [...]
Philip N. Howard and Nimah Mazaheri. “Telecommunications Reform, Internet Use and Mobile Phone Adoption in the Developing World.” World Development 37, no. 7 (2009): 1159-69. How do telecommunications policies influence technology adoption? Has regulatory reform helped mitigate or exacerbate the digital divide? We examine the effects of four policy reform strategies on [...]
This Working Paper appears on the website of the World Information Access Project. As we analyze the use of the concept of internet diffusion found in economics, political science, and public policy research in this paper, we find that the research on internet diffusion is often characterized by extensive errors [...]
Philip N. Howard, “Testing the Leap-Frog Hypothesis: Assessing the Impact of Extant Infrastructure and Telecommunication Policy on the Global Digital Divide.” Information, Communication & Society 10, no. 2 (2007): 133-57. This paper tests the ‘leap-frog’ hypothesis by modeling the impact of existing telecommunications infrastructure, controlling for economic, political and demographic [...]
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