US Government Studies

A series of US government- funded studies, the "Fallling Through the Net" reports, done between 1995 and 2002, are of important historical interest as they did much to popularize and define the notion of a "digital divide." More recent reports, such as those from the Pew Center for the Internet and American Life, bring the data and baseline analysis more up to date.

• Falling Through the Net I: A Survey of the "Have Nots" in Rural and Urban America (1995) The original study that did much to stimulate national debate on the divide.
• Falling Through the Net II: New Data on the Digital Divide (1998) New data, but not a substantially new analysis.
• Falling Through the Net III: Defining the Digital Divide (1999) Third study explores the fact that clear definitions had not previously been achieved.
• Falling Through the Net IV: Toward Digital Inclusion (2000) Enunciates a somewhat more aggressive agenda in the face of the ongoing gap.
• Falling Through the Newt V: A Nation Online (2002) Stresses growing number of overall users but continuance of the divide.

Income, Access and Defining the Divide

Gender, Race and Nation

• A Web Site with a View: The Third World Special issue of First Monday on web developments around the globe in 2007.
• Bridging the Gender Digiital Divide United Nations (UNIFEM) report from 2005.
• Carnage of Identity: Cyborgs and Women in Science Fiction and Horror Films Article by Ben Rollins.
• Coming Apart at the Seams: Sex, Text and the Virtual Body Article by Shannon McRae.
• Cultural Diversity in Cybersapce Article by Peter Gerrand, using Catalan as a case study.
• Cyber Commerce and Community: Asian Pacific America and the Asian Pacific Rim Article by Greta Ai-Yu Ni, Department of English, SUNY Brockport, on Asian American stereotypes transferred to cyberspaces.
• Cyberspace Under Construction: Design and Diversity in the Blacksburg Electronic Village and the Seattle Community Network
  Classic article by David Silver, based on his ethnographic study of two major online community web matrices.
• Digital Divide or Digital Development? Article by James Curry and Martin Kenney, using Mexico as a case study.
• Digital Third Worlds Special issue of Cybersociology on race, class and nationality online.
• Feminization of Cyberspace Classic early article by 'Doctress Neutopia.'
• Foucault in Cyberspace: Surveillance, Sovereignty, and Hard-Wired Censors Article by James Boyle on law, identity and privacy online.
• From Big Brother to the Electronic Panopticon Article by David Lyon on the dangers of new electronic surveillance mechanisms.
• Gender Online Special issue of electronic journal Computer-Mediated Communication.
• I May Be Synthetic, But I’m Not Stupid: Technicity, Artifice and Repetition in Cyberville Excerpt from an interesting undergraduate thesis by G. Marks.
• Is the Web Too Cool for Blacks? Article by Leonce Gaiter. Is black culture too conservative to produce an interest in the web?
• Identity and the Cyborg Body Article by Elizabeth Reid.
• Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community Article by Judith S. Donath, MIT Media Lab.
• Keeping it (Virtually) Real: The Discourse of Cyberspace as an Object of Knowledge
  Article by Lisa Nakamura, Department of English, Sonoma State University, exploring the politics of analyzing cyberspaces.
• New Mexico Tribal Libaries: Bridging the Digital Divide Article by Jessica Dorr and Richard Akeroyd.
• The Presentation of Self in Electronic Life: Goffman on the Internet Article by Hugh Miller, Nottingham Trent University, on the relevance of Erving Goffman’s theory of self-presentation to Internet life.
• The Presentation of Self in WWW Home Pages Article by Hugh Miller and Russell Mather.
• Real Genders Choose Fantasy Characters: Class Choice in the World of Warcraft Article by Nicholas DiGiuseppe and Bonnie Nardi on identiy in the online "warcraft" game with 7 million players.
• Sex and the Cybergirl Article by Julie Petersen treating online sexual harassment issues.
• Situating Cyberspace: The Popularization of Virtual Reality
  Article by Philip Haywood on how cyberspace has been promoted and popularized by different popular culture institutions and languages.
• Surplus Identity On-Line Article by Annalee Newlitz, from the journal Bad Subjects, on how and why online identities differ from offline ones.
• Who Will We Be in Cyberspace? Article by Langdon Winner on unequal power relations in the creation and use of cyberspace.
• Will the Real Body Please Stand Up? Classic article by Allucquére Rosanne Stone on the complexities of embodied identity in cyberspace.