@Rokoyama_L: "So vamps happen to be immortal though when sun exposed or stake through their hearts they die...wow talk about being IMMORTAL!!! #ItsNkay"
Like blogging, conveying my thoughts on a social networking and micro-blog platform, with a provision of 140 characters, known as Twitter is an illustration of how communication has evolved over the periods of years. It is also an illustration of how technology has evolved.
From telegram communication to sending an electronic mail, known as email, to connecting with a vast number of people from various walks of life and countries via Facebook, and not forget the up-to-the-minute news and gossips via Twitter, technology has transformed the way of life. All technological innovation such as blogging, Facebook and Twitter are classified as new media. Though technology has changed the manner in which we communicate and connect on a daily basis, it has also managed to change the political sphere.
The audio-visual media known as YouTube has changed the face of politics. An excellent example of this change is the birth of Obama girl. Long story cut short, Amber Lee Ettinger was the girl who sang the song "I have a crush on Obama" during Obama’s presidential run February 2007. Thus new media also enabled South Africa to digitise its government in transforming and establishing an e-government and e-democracy.
So you ask what is e-government and e-democracy. Once again I shall consult the Nkay-tionary and of course the experts within the fields. The Nkay-tionary defines e-government as a group of people who run the country via the Internet. E-democracy is defined as a country in which its people have the right to select which poltical party should run the country and it is a means of how a country should be run through communication means via the Internet.
Well that’s what the Nkay-tionary defines both terms. But the authentic definition of e-government is defined, by Tlagadi, as the involvement of new styles of leadership, new ways of debating and deciding policy and investment, new ways of accessing education, new ways of listening to citizens and new ways of organising and delivering information and services.
Mpidi also refers to e-government or e-governance as public sector’s use of information and communication technologies with the aim of improving information and service delivery, encouraging citizen participation in the decision-making process and making government more accountable, transparent and effective.
Though e-governance makes it easier for the citizens to communicate with South Africa’s government through accessing it via the Internet, not all have the leisure of communicating and participating with the government. With that said, it draws our topic discussion to the concept known as digital divide within the sphere of new media. Mphidi’s article sources various definitions of digital divide.
The American Library Association (ALA), Office for Information Technology Policy (2000) defines the digital divide as disparities based on economic, status, gender, race, physical abilities and geographic location between those who have or do not have access to information, the Internet and other information technologies and services.
Mariscal (2005:410) defines the concept as the gap between individuals, households, business and geographic arrears at different socio-economic levels with regard both to their opportunities to access information technologies and to the use of such technologies for a wide variety of activities.
From both definitions sourced by Mphidi, the main idea a person concludes is that digital divide is simple a lack of access to technologies such as computers and the Internet. Therefore South African citizens who do not have access to computers or the Internet, it makes it difficult for these citizens to gain access to government resources or participant within the running of the country. Therefore, such lack of access to media technology contradicts the idea of a democratic society in South Africa. Democracy in South Africa is based on the foundation of equality for all due to the past injustices that were induced by its previous government within the country. Though the gap of digital divide is still evident in South Africa, it is slowly becoming extinct.
Though what needs to be noted is the fact that digital divide is not merely the lack of access to technology or information but it also varies from one level to the next. Hargittai’s and Hinnant’s article, Digital Inequality: Differences in Young Adults’ Use of the Internet, tackles the issue that not all adolescents utilise technology similarly. They conducted a hypothesis that deduced adolescents with a variation of high levels of educational recorded various levels of the adolescents’ digital literacy. Therefore, by contextualising Hargittai’s and Hinnant’s hypothesis, it means that South African have varied degrees of digital literacy.
Surely with time, every South African citizen will have access to government resources and information and participate with government.
Sources consulted
- Hargittai, E. and Hinnati, A. 2008. Digital Inequality: Difference in Young Adults’ Use of the Internet.pdf [O] Available at:
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