Digital inequality in provincial China(中国信息化的空间不平等)
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Digital inequality in provincial
China
Haimeng Liu,Chuanglin Fang and Siao Sun
Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research,Chinese
Academy of Sciences,China;College of Resources and Environment,University
of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,China Abstract
The rapid spread of information and communications technologies is accelerating the development of our economy and society.While information and communications technologies have become an important development tool that reshapes many aspects of the world’s activities,digital inequality emerges on a worldwide scale due to difference in access to and use of information and communications technologies.Digital inequality,which is a new phenomenon in the current information era,will widen the gap between developed and developing countries/regions.China has witnessed rapid informationization along with its booming economic growth over the past decade.However,digital inequality,as an important aspect of social inequalities in China,has received only scant attention currently.Based on the technique of cartogram,Figures display provincial information and communications technologies development index (IDI)values in 2010and 2015in China,exhibiting high inequality.Regions of the highest information and communications technologies levels are distributed along China’s eastern coast.On the contrary,the provinces in the west present very low information and communications technologies levels.The coefficient of variation of IDI values dropped from 0.30to 0.18,indicating declining digital inequality in China.A causal bidirectional relation probably exists between the economic development and information and communications technologies levels.Keywords
Digital inequality,China,information and communications technologies
The rapid spread of information and communications technologies (ICT)is accelerating the development of our economy and society.While ICT have become an important development tool that reshapes many aspects of the world’s activities,digital inequality emerges on a worldwide scale due to difference in access to and use of ICT (Torres-Albero et al.,2014).Digital inequality,which is a new phenomenon in the current information era,will widen the gap between developed and developing countries/regions.China has witnessed rapid informationization along with its booming economic growth over the past decade.In 2016,the number of internet users has reached 731million,making the Corresponding author:
Chuanglin Fang,Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing,China.
Email:fangcl@
Environment and Planning A 0(0)1–4!The Author(s)2017Reprints and permissions:/journalsPermissions.nav DOI:10.1177//home/epn