Research On Digital Divide Formation Mechanism

The regional digital divide is not a pure technical issue, but involves a very broad social problem, which seriously affect China’s development in all aspects. There’s big social gap between East and west China and also in urban and rural, the studies of which reveal that they are closely relateded to the digital divide. So to study and resolve the regional digital divide means also to help balance the regions’development, and will also promote the development of the whole society.The Chinese government paid great attention to the advancement of national information technology and address the digital divide. But still faces many problems in addressing the regional digital divide. The first is that the means which are deployed to settle this issue are relatively simple; the second is government investment is relatively small; the third is that there’s lack of strong information technology to facilitate the organization; the fourth is there is not a system of science policy framework.Resolve these issues first need to conduct a more comprehensive, in-depth analysis of the digital divide. So far, however, the study which gives a systematic interpretation on this issue is still rare. Most researches just give their explation in their own micro angles.This desertation did an in-depth study of the the digital divide mechanism of, analyzed the formation mechanism model and the causes of the digital divide, forecasted the digital divide development trend, and at last set up an policy dicision framework to give corresponding policy recommendations. By all means, this study has a strong practical significance to promoting China’s digital divide policy and bridging the regional digital divide. This study includes9chapters.Chapter1:Introduction. In this charpter a literature review had been given. First, it clarify the origin and definition of the digital divide, and second it proposed the formation mechanism of the regional digital divide, and finally pointed out the significance of this research on the issue, followed by the introduction to methods and ideas of this study.Chapter2:literature review of regional digital divide formation mechanism. It reviewed literature of the formation mechanism of regional digital divide at home and abroad, which includes two aspects, namely the evolution of the digital divide research, the research on a dynamic mechanism of digital divide.Chapter3:The conceptual model of the regional digital divide. In this chapter the reason on the formation of the regional digital divide was clasified into two dimensions. First dimension is so-called innovation diffusion, in this view, digital divide starts from peoples’understanding and willingness to access, then to have access, to have the skills to effectively use, and at last to effectively use ICT. The second is the resources dimension, in this view, regional digital divide is viewed a result of the uneven distribution of policy, economic, social, technological resources in different districts.Chapter4:The empirical research on the formation mechanism of China’s regional digital divide.Following the conclusions of Chapter3, this chapter established a series of index for each factors of the digital divide, which concluded in three internal factors indexes for ICT use, ICT skills, and ICT access, as well as four external factors indexes for government, economic, social, and technology. On this basis, a descriptive analysis of the relationship between the influencing factors of the regional digital divide was deployed.Chapter5:The causal analysis of the factors of China’s regional digital divide, and try on a static modelThis chapter tested the causality and cointegration between the factors of China’s regional digital divide, with panal data methodologies. Then tried on static digital divide formation mechanism, with the the path analysis model.Chapter6:The dynamic model of the formation mechanism of China’s regional digital divide.With the conclusion of the causal test in chapter5, a series of dynamic regression model for each factors of regional digital divide have been firstly made. Then with the system dynamics theories, an China’s regional digital divide model had been carried out.Chapter7:Government ICT investment policy based on the Steinberg model analysisIntroduced in Chapter7the Stackelberg model in game theory, the necessity of strengthening the global management of the ICT investment, and the corresponding control parameters selected policies had been made.Chapter8:a comprehensive proposal to bridge the regional digital divide in China.This chapter proposed the establishment of principles of the digital divide policy, under the principle of this dynamic model of the digital divide policy framework for thinking.Chapter9:Conclusions and Prospects. The full text of the work had been revisited. A summarize of the main findings and conclusions had been made, and the lack of research and outlook on future research directionshad been pointed out.The main innovation of this article including:1. The first innovation of this paper is doing a causality test on digital divide formation mechanism based on panel data.2. The second is an integrated use of panel data dynamic regression model and the system dynamics to establish and dynamic regional digital divide formation model.3. The third is a digital divide policy analysis based on Stackelberg model.