Phenomena of digital divide and ways of its bridging

Abstract

This article is concerned with the research of digital divide challenge and its social and economic impacts. Authors review the formation of definitions and their development. Because of research, the views of famous scientists on divide, its main aspects and role in social and economic relation system are mentioned; definition of “digital divide” is reviewed; author typologies of digital divide are reviewed; five main areas of digital divide concept are highlighted; its reasons and impacts are defined. Phenomena of digital divide started to be researched extensively at the end of XX century; the following concepts can be highlighted from the main ones: total access availability, capacity development, economical change, digital public goods development, global digital cooperation. Therefore, digital divide is the newest type of divide, which is still in theoretical justification infancy; there is still no universal definition of this phenomena.