Digital Geographies
Global Digital Divides in the COVID-19 Era examines global digital divides prior to and during the pandemic, emphasizing internet and technology trends, spatial distributions, determinants, explanations, policy implications, and the aspiration of an equitable digital society. It analyzes purposeful use of the internet in the world and the majority of its major regions and countries. For digitally underserved economies, such as sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Middle East, it is still appropriate to consider the traditional measures of technology access and use. In advanced economies, AI and machine learning are examined.
This book identifies where deficits are located geographically, and also where the hot spots and cold spots are for levels of use and purposeful use of technologies. It points out the impacts of these technologies before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For mature, inclusive, and equitable digital societies worldwide, attention has shifted from gaps in access to gaps in purposeful use of these technologies. For broadband, purposeful uses include e-commerce, e-health, e-entertainment, e-communication, e-education, and remote work.
This book provides actual accounts of the digital divide challenges and successes in several case studies, such as the trailing usage of ICTs in Bolivia, the heightened purposeful use of e-commerce in Sweden and Denmark, and AI use in the US Silicon Valley. Finally, it recommends policies and steps that various national, state, and provincial governments can develop to narrow digital divides and improve the equity and inclusion of all their diverse citizens.
This book explores the geographical dimensions and implications of the post-truth era. Opening with a defense of the Enlightenment and the continued significance of science, objectivity, and truth, it then provides three key perspectives on the concept:
The first is a philosophical analysis of post-truth. Social theory in various forms has sutured knowledge and power, in the process relativizing the nature of truth. This process reaches its apogee under post-modernism, which questions the very nature of truth itself.
The second is the examination of the historical origins and development of the post-truth world. While post-truth has a history that can be traced back to the 18th and 19th centuries, more recently it has growth prolifically through the use of social media. The book examines post-truth as it appears in the yellow journalism of the Hearst newspapers, Holocaust denial, and contemporary attacks on science itself (e.g., the anti-vaccine movement, denial of evolution). Post-truth becomes a central issue in Western politics following Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, who uses it frequently to advance a reactionary political agenda. Russian hackers weaponize it to interfere in the politics of Europe and the U.S. Fox News and other right-wing outlets also play a central role. One result is the proliferation of unfounded conspiracy theories such as QAnon. Today, autocrats and dictators the world over use fake news to maintain their power.
Finally, this book links the rise of a post-truth society to the dynamics of contemporary economic geography. Knowledge-intensive capitalism has greatly elevated the significance of symbolic workers or the creative class. Geographically, contemporary capitalism has accentuated the agglomeration of producer services in large urban areas in which such workers labor. Conversely, rural areas and small towns have largely become repositories of the undereducated, and thus are more susceptible to fake news.
