Inequality in New Media: On Preference and Priority: A choice or fate? By Nur Syahirah

There is no doubt that the usage and ownership of information and communications technologies (ICTs) are increasing and giving significant impacts to society’s daily lives. In fact, with the advancement in ICT such as the internet, society today is not restricted to a certain time and space. However, with such advantage, the image of inequality is bound to come into picture. According to Acilar (2011), the world has recognized the notion of digital divide as the cause of evident knowledge gaps between the information-rich and the information poor that exclude certain societies in the world to be part of the steadfast growth of technology advancement. Acilar (2011) argued further that the digital divide that exists between richer and poorer countries in terms of availability of complementary assets such as skilled ICT professionals and telecommunication networks illustrate the unequal access of ICT utilization in which should be taken into a critical considerations. 

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As enlightened by Stiakakis, Kariotellis, & Vlachopoulou (2009), digital divide leads to digital inequality in which they stated five forms of digital inequality. The five forms are the inequality to technical means in which some community has no access to proper internet connections, inequality with regards to autonomy use, inequality with regards to skills and lastly, inequality in terms of social support. Hilbert (2011) stresses that digital divide also takes into picture the aspects of age and gender with significant differences in their usage and ownership. In relation to understand digital divide further, a simple questionnaire was given out to 10 students of different age, gender and ethnicity. This was carried out in order to identify as well as analyze the similarities and differences on the three aspects mentioned earlier among the students.

The questionnaires were given to 9 female students and 1 male student from Malay, Indian, Chines, and Iban ethnicity. In totality, all 10 students own at least one new media namely, laptop, tablet, smartphone, MP3 player and game consoles. 70% of these students possess laptop and smartphone, 20% own a laptop, a tablet, a smartphone and a MP3 player whilst 10% of them own a laptop, tablet and a smartphone. A few categories were listed out in finding out how many students spend using new media on education, entertainment, finance, food & beverages, games, health & fitness, music, photo & videos, productivity, shopping, sports and for travelling. Most of the respondents spend their time on new media from 1 to 2 hours daily. In comparing the time spent among the respondents in using new media, the most time spent is on games with the usage for financials coming in second. The usage of new media on food and beverages, sports and shopping come in third. In discussing the similarities and differences in new media ownership, it is apparent that owning new media among the Malay, Chinese, Iban and Indian is nothing distinctive. In fact, each ethnicity own at least one new media and use them base on personal preferences. In comparing in terms of age, there is no significant differences in terms of the usage of new media and the age range as the results have shown that respondents use their new media in accordance to their personal priorities.

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In conclusion, through the mini research that was carried out with only 10 respondents, the digital divide was not utterly distinctive. However, this does not confirm that it does not exist in the bigger picture among the global society. From the mini research, though, the conclusion that could be made is that the usage of new media is dependent on the preferences of the individuals. This could be supported by Ericsson Consumer Insight Summary Report (2015) that highlighted on how consumers trends are now involving internet in which many aspects of their daily lives are revolved around their personal online habits such as shopping, socializing, studying, traveling, listening to music, and even eating and exercising. The report also suggested that consumers are now mostly using the internet from the influences around them. This relates to the result of the mini research in a way that the respondents own and use the new media align with their personal preferences and priorities.

References

Acilar, A. (2011). Exploring the aspects of digital divide in a developing country. Issues in Informing Science and Information Techonology, 8, 231-244. http://iisit.org/Vol8/IISITv8p231-244Acilar248.pdf

Ericsson Consumer Insight Summary Report. (2015, December). 10 Hot Consumer Trends 2016. Retrieved from https://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2015/consumerlab/ericsson-consumerlab-10-hot-consumer-trends-2016-report.pdf

Hilbert, M. (2011). Digital gender divide or technologically empowered women in developing countries? A typical case of lies, damned lies, and statistics. Women’s Studies International Forum, 34(6), 479-489. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2011.07.001

Stiakakis, E., Kariotellis, P., & Vlachopoulou, M. (2010). From the digital divide to digital inequality: A secondary research in the European Union. Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, 26, 43-54.  doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-11631-5_4