Knowledge divide

The knowledge divide is the gap in standards of living between those who can find, create, manage, process, and disseminate information or knowledge, and those who are impaired in this process. According to a 2005 UNESCO World Report, the rise in the 21st century of a global information society has resulted in the emergence of knowledge as a valuable resource, increasingly determining who has access to power and profit. The rapid dissemination of information on a potentially global scale as a result of new information media and the globally uneven ability to assimilate knowledge and information has resulted in potentially expanding gaps in knowledge between individuals and nations.

In the 21st century, the emergence of the knowledge society becomes pervasive. The transformations of world's economy and of each society have a fast pace. Together with information and communication technologies (ICT) these new paradigms have the power to reshape the global economy. In order to keep pace with innovations, to come up with new ideas, people need to produce and manage knowledge. This is why knowledge has become essential for all societies.

According to UNESCO and the World Bank, knowledge gaps between nations may occur due to the varying degrees by which individual nations incorporate the following elements:

The information and ICT systems that support knowledge are very important. This is why digitization is viewed closely related to knowledge. Scientists generally agree that there is a digital divide, recently different reports also showed the existence of knowledge divide.

The creation and effective use of knowledge are increasingly related to the development of an ICT infrastructure. Without ICT, it is impossible to have an infrastructure able to process the huge flow of information required in an advanced economy. In particular, without adequate technical support, it is difficult to develop and use e-learning and electronic documents to overcome time and space constraints.

The digital divide is, however, but one important part of the larger knowledge divide. As UNESCO states, "closing the digital divide will not suffice to close the knowledge divide, for access to useful, relevant knowledge is more than simply a matter of infrastructure—it depends on training, cognitive skills and regulatory frameworks geared towards access to contents."

In the book Digital Dead End, Virginia Eubanks criticizes the way that the digital divide is generally thought of as a division between haves and have-nots, where the solution is distribution. This over simplistic depiction obscures the fact that often social and structural inequality is at the root of the divide. According to a study done by Eubanks with women of the YWCA, the women of the community "insisted that have-nots possess many different kinds of crucial information and skills." In other words, it is not simply knowledge of the technology itself that is the issue but the structural system based on perpetuating the status quo in which the haves "hoard" knowledge.

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Wikipedia