Tackling the Divide on the Ground

There is a big digital divide between the richest countries whose citizens can afford new technology and have access to the internet, and the poorest countries where access to such things is scarce. There are a number of ways of attempting to bridge the gap, such as digital broadcasts. Digital broadcasts are cheap, wireless method of access to the news to people in the rural areas of the digital divide.

These are good because they can be watched on cheap equipment. The downside to this is that western television (which is often shown through this) is something which is not.

Another problem with tackling the digital divide are the governments of these countries. What will often happen is the government will become the sole provider of telecommunications and internet services, then charge monopoly level prices to make additional profit for the government, and introduce legislation to prevent competition. This can be good for the government as it creates profit, but is a serious issue as it widens the digital divide even firther.

Social Networking

Social Networking websites online services which help people to connect which each other over the internet. The sites allow them to keep in contact with people they know, keep up with gossip within their social groups and make and meet new people online.


Sites like facebook and twitter are growing at incredible rates, with facebook being the most visited website in the world, with upwards of a billion users, causing many large internet companies to make their own social networking services, such as google plus.

    However the increase in popularity of these sites also raises some more sinister concerns. Online Bullying, or cyber bullying is become an increasingly big issue, with more and more people using the security of their computers as a platform to launch degrading online attacks on their peers, and these websites are excellent oppertunities for these people.


Overall, although social networking is a great thing with many possibiltiies and positive side effects, such as it's role in the arab spring, allowing attention to be brought to serious issues in countries with oppressive governments. However, social networks neet to watch out for abuse of their service, as cyber bullying becomes a more and more prevelant issue.

Types of Organsation and their Use of ICT

Using ICT, and more specifically the internet is a key part of any successful business plan, and with the slow rise of it's importance, failure of companies to adapt and incorporate it into their business structure are starting to pay the price.Here are two examples of failing businesses and their under use of the internet.

 

 This article show how blockbuster failed to compete in the online market, as they originally made their business model based around video rentals, something which has been made far cheaper, easier and better by the internet, and other services such as netflix or lovefilm. As blockbuster ignored this market for too long, their physical sales declined, until they were forced into administration.

HMV is another great example of a retailer that failed to adapt to online markets, HMV were once the biggest retailer of music, until the early 90's when sales started to decline as the internet started becoming more and more prominent. Year over year, physical sales were on a decline while online sales were on an increase, and HMV's failure to react resulted in their failure.

 

 

Civil Rights

Civil Righs and how they are affected by IT is a serious issue in modern society. as technology becomes more prevelant, technology to monitor people becomes more and more available, such as sattelites and GPS allowing criminals to be tracked, causing the debate of privacy versus security to always be at the forefront of people's minds.

The issue sometimes occurs with your information, and the rights you have to it, as your information is stored by a number of agencies, from the NHS to the DVLA. This has worrying implications, as your rights to that information are not always entirely clear. This issue is made a lot worse with IT, as many websites keep databases of your information, often having worrying things hidden in their terms of service.
As IT evolves and it becomes easier and easier to store and access information, the striuggle of privacy and security becomes ever more prevelant, with no real victors,

Open University - how has it changed University Education

The open university is a distance learning university, or a university which does not physically teach all of it's students. It was set up to ensure students could recieve an education even with physical limits, such as distance. It was first set up in 1969, with the first students enrolling in 1971, two years later. It is notably different to other universities because of its approach to enrolling students, in that their previous education is not looked at (making it an open university). Although it is also a physical university, the vast majority of its students learn off campus, and there are currently over 250,000 students enrolled in the university, making it the largest in the UK, and among the largest in Europe.