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Open Dissertation-Joonho Hwang The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Communications DECONSTRUCTING THE DISCOURSE OF THE GLOBAL DIGITAL DIVIDE IN THE AGE OF NEO-LIBERAL GLOBAL ECONOMY A Thesis in Mass Communications by Joonho Hwang © 2006 Joonho Hwang Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2006 The thesis of Joonho Hwang was reviewed and approved* by the following: Jorge Reina Schement Professor of Communications Thesis Adviser Chair of Committee Richard Taylor Professor of Communications Krishna Jayakar Associate Professor of Communications Leif Jensen Professor of Rural Sociology and Demography John Nichols Professor of Communications Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research of the College of Communications *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. iii ABSTRACT The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the discourse of the global digital divide historically and discursively, using the critical discourse analysis, with a view to identifying that the discourse of the global digital divide is not only an emerging discourse in the current age of globalization, but also is the succession of the modernistic discourse of technology and development constructed by the dominant power countries since World War II. Historically, this study explored how dominant capitalist powers, mainly the United States, have promoted the discourse of technology and development to maintain and reproduce their hegemonic powers over less-developed areas. During the post-World War II, the Point Four program and modernization theory served to construct and propagate the Western-oriented and modernistic discourse of technology and development, characterized as the sharp dichotomy between “Traditional-Bad” and “Modern-Good.” In the age of neo-liberal globalization, the establishment of the Global Information Infrastructure and the WTO Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services were the double-headed apparatus that have created a new ground in which to reproduce and maintain the dominant capitalist powers led mainly by the U.S. in response to the decline of their economic and political supremacy since the 1970s. Discursively, this study analyzed a major policy report on the global digital divide co-authored by ITU and ORBICOM (2005) to address how the discourse of the global digital divide construct the discourse of technology and development? The critical textual analysis found that various linguistic features and discursive strategies in the policy report were constructed to promote the access-oriented technological development particularly in less-developed countries based on the modernistic and neo-liberal economic development, which have served to maintain and reproduce the dominant capitalist strategies of technology and development. Finally, from a perspective of human development as social inclusion, this study proposes the interdisciplinary approach to ICTs development for better policy implementation. It prioritizes to explore the uniqueness of social structures, social problems, and social relations in individual societies rather than to simply increase the levels of access to and usage of ICTs to overcome the problem of the global digital divide. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................................ vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................................................................................viii CHAPTER 1. THE GLOBAL DIGITAL DIVIDE: GLOBALIZATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND INEQUALITY ............................................................................. 1 1.1. Introduction.................................................................................................................. 1 1.2. Research Questions...................................................................................................... 6 1.3. Research Methodology ................................................................................................ 7 1.4. Overview of the Chapters ............................................................................................ 9 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................... 11 2.1. The Origin of the Terms, Digital Divide and Global Digital Divide......................... 16 2.2. Review of the Main Trends in Global Digital Divide Research................................ 16 2.2.1. Global Awareness of Emerging ICTs..................................................................... 16 2.2.2. Measuring the Global Digital Divide and ICTs Development ............................... 18 2.2.3. Explaining the Determinant Factors of the Global Digital Divide ......................... 25 2.3. Alternative Thoughts on the Global Digital Divide................................................... 37 2.3.1. Competing Paradigms of Policy Analysis .............................................................. 38 2.3.1.1. Positivist Policy Analysis as Technocratic Discourse ......................................... 38 2.3.1.2. Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis: Policy Discourse as Politics of Meaning ........................................................................................................................................... 40 2.3.2. Attention to the Discourse of the New ICTs Development and the Global Digital Divide................................................................................................................................ 42 CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .............................................................. 47 3.1. Theoretical Frameworks of Critical Discourse Analysis........................................... 47 3.1.1. Emergence of Critical Approach to Language Study ............................................. 47 3.1.2. Language as Discourse, Power, Ideology, and Hegemony..................................... 51 v 3.1.3. Discourse and Social Context: Orders of Discourse............................................... 57 3.2. Analytical Framework of Critical Discourse Analysis .............................................. 59 3.3. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis of the Discourse of the Global Digital Divide ........................................................................................................................................... 61 3.3.1. Contextual Analysis: Historical Approach ............................................................. 61 3.3.2. Selection of Text..................................................................................................... 63 3.3.3. Textual Analysis: Linguistic Approach .................................................................. 66 CHAPTER 4. DISCOURSE OF TECHNOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT: FROM THE POST-WORLD WAR II ERA TO THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION.......................... 68 4.1. Establishment of the Discourse of Technology and National Development during the Post-World War II Era...................................................................................................... 68 4.1.1. U.S. Political and Economic Hegemony after World War II ................................. 68 4.1.2. The Point Four Program.......................................................................................... 71 4.1.3. Modernization Theory: From Traditional Society to Modern Society................... 80 4.1.4. Critiques about the Modernist View of Development ............................................ 84 4.2. Emergence of Neo-liberalism and New Technologies in the Age of Globalization.. 88 4.2.1. Crisis of U.S. Hegemonic Power and Move to Neo-liberalism.............................. 88 4.2.2. The Global Information Infrastructure (GII) .......................................................... 91 4.2.2.1. The National Information Infrastructure (NII) as Background for GII ............... 91 4.2.2.2. Visions of the Global Information Infrastructure (GII) ....................................... 94 4.2.3. Establishment of Free and Open Global Market: the GATS and the WTO ........... 96 4.2.3.1. The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)....................................... 96 4.2.3.2. The WTO Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services ........................ 100 4.3. Interpretations of New Technologies and New Global Capitalism in the Age of Globalization................................................................................................................... 103 CHAPTER 5. TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF A POLICY REPORT ON THE GLOBAL DIGITAL DIVIDE.......................................................................................................... 111 5.1. Main Theme and Four Key Policy Contents............................................................ 112 5.2. Discursively-Constructed Meanings of Four Key Policy Contents......................... 116 vi 5.2.1. Key Policy Contents 1: Information Society as Policy Context........................... 118 5.2.2. Key Policy Contents 2: Infostates as Policy Means.............................................. 123 5.2.3. Key Policy Contents 3: Digital Divide as Policy Problem ................................... 136 5.2.4. Key Policy Contents 4: Digital Opportunities (or Development) as Policy Goal 147 5.3. Discursive Strategies of Justifying the Neo-liberal and Modernistic Paradigm of Technology and Development ........................................................................................ 153 5.3.1. Discursive
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