Guide to Comparative Politics on the Internet

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1. THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

The first point concerns the internet itself. Six out of every seven people in the world have never used the web and internet access is still greatest in the affluent western democracies ( internetworldstats ). In much of the developing world, including most Arab and African countries, access is still a rarity and is likely to remain so until wireless access becomes more straightforward.

Even when the internet is available, use of it is sometimes policed ( Unesco webworld), reducing the effective value of the medium. In any case, the internet is less useful to the billions of people on the planet who cannot read ( UN statistics division). For now, the digital divide between the internet-enabled and the internet-disabled remains large.

Such knowledge gaps have political consequences. How different, we wonder, would the world be if internet use in Saudi Arabia were at the same level as in the United States? ( Arab gateway). At any rate, as students of politics it behoves us to be aware that the internet is more than a research tool; it is itself a component of political communication.