The digital divide in terms of network empowerment

My son alerted me to this posting by Nancy Scola on The American Prospect. I quote:

On Black Friday, I picked up a sweet 32" Samsung HD TV for about $500. That's not nothing, but it occurred to me after I left Best Buy that the full suite of cutting edge technology I own can today be had for a few thousand dollars (even less if you go MacBook instead of MacBook Pro, get the $99 iPhone, etc.). That's rather amazing, and it means that I can whip up creative content in a way that would blow the minds of gear heads even a decade ago. It doesn't mean, though, that anyone is going to necessarily listen to once I post it online......

But I'll suggest one consideration worth keeping in mind. We're quickly getting to a place where it makes sense to think about the digital divide not just in terms of hardware disparities. Distribution networks are becoming an ever bigger deal, as conversations are being shaped by who is reading/following whom online. That's why it starts to matter who Post reporters are listening to on Twitter or whether the political class ignores MySpace in favor of Facebook. Give a read, for example, to the story that the City Paper is telling about how the Washington Postignored for quite a while gripping documentary evidence available online about the DC snowball incident, preferring instead official denials issued by MPD. Of course, gripping videos of cops behaving badly might break through in a big way eventually. But cheap technologies don't alone dictate that everyone's voices are going to get heard.

Scola follows many in considering the digital divide in terms of the individuals connectivity. That is. of course, a perfectly reasonable concern. I tend to focus on the digital divide in terms of the overall economic consequences of the difference in penetration of ICT, and thus on the power users of IT.

However, Scola makes a great point with respect to the divide as to who is attended to in cyberspace. I does little good to be right and to be posted if no one who can and will take action on what you produce reads it. The mass media empowered those who had control of the broadcast media. The point-to-point media empower those who are most connected. Lets see institutions develop to give those who have important messages to deliver the power to get those messages read.

The Washington Post comes in for a shot in Scola's article for listening to The Man rather than to the truth tellers.