Digital Divide 2.0 and the Digital Subaltern (Report‪)‬

Introduction Initial awareness of issues relating to the digital divide were raised by the 1999 study Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide from the Department of Commerce in the United States. (1) The development and perpetuation of a digital divide between the information 'haves' and 'have nots' was framed as a problem of 'access.' In the context of the increasing online population, debates about social inequity have often been directed at technical barriers to access, the physical infrastructure, and economic impediments to the adoption of the medium by all members of society. However, like the Internet itself, the nature of this divide is changing and has evolved in the last decade. New theories of understanding and new strategies of intervention are required to overcome new barriers to access presented by digital divide 2.0. This paper seeks to inform this process by focusing on those currently excluded from access to the digital environment not so much by a lack of physical infrastructure but rather by forces related to cultural capital and consciousness. This group without a voice in discourses about access has become a new type of digital subaltern. However this digital subaltern has qualities unique to the digital environment that they do not share with their analogue counterparts.