Ninoslava Savić and Zoran Radojičić
on different social groups of population concerned as endangered like, for example: low against the high educated, older against younger, poor against rich parts of population. It is, also, possible to monitor digital polarization in economy, represented by enterprises, between small and big enterprises or between enterprises form less developed and more developed localities etc.
Studying and measuring of digital divide between countries and regions is significant for discovering the capacity of one nation to participate in the global information society. By measuring the gap between different socio‐economic groups within one certain country, in the context of their potentials to participate in ICT application, it is possible to affect the design and the change of the current developing e‐strategies.
It is possible to monitor and measure digital divide limited on the certain domain of information society like: e‐ Government, e‐education, e‐health or e‐business. For example, it could be useful to connect measurement of e‐Government and measurement of digital divide, creating a special model which could provide information about the existing digital polarizations in e‐Government field.
This paper suggests one methodology, which quantitatively expressed a digital polarization in using e‐ Government services, that could be applied on different fields of measurement like population, economy, region, etc.
2. Classification of digital divide
The expression“ Information society for all” presents one of political priorities of the European Union( European Commission, 2000, 2002). European Union( EU) has attempted to establish a modern society in which everybody can enjoy all benefits of using ICTs by setting goal of minimizing all forms of“ digital divide”. The terms participation and inclusion are introduced when mentioning rightful society, with such socio‐economic environment in which all citizens, or at least the majority, will be able to enjoy the advantages of information society( European Commission, 2001).
The term digital divide denotes the gap between individuals, households, enterprises or geographical regions that are on different levels of socio‐economic development, which is monitored through their possibilities for the access to ICT, as well as their use of Internet in private, social and business activities( OECD, 2001).
Digital divide refers to differences in possibilities for ICT application and differences in the ways of its application. This phenomenon can be monitored as external or internal digital divide.
Internal digital divide refers to differences in ICT adoption that exists in one specific country. It can be monitored on population and on business entities( enterprises).
Internal digital divide of population is studied on different social groups that are classified according to the chosen criteria such as gender, education level, income level, age etc.
Internal digital divide of business entities is studied on different groups of enterprises, classified according to the appropriately chosen relevant criteria( the size of enterprise, field of work, realized profit etc.).
External digital divide can be noticed in relation to the environment of a certain country, when a specific country is compared to other countries, regions, communities of states or geographical units.
For all levels of digital divide mentioned above, there is a possibility to focus at certain aspect of information society, as a global phenomenon. So, we can study digital divide in different fields of information society, like:
• digital divide in the field of e‐Government,
• digital divide in the field of e‐business,
• digital divide in the field of e‐health,
• digital divide in the field of e‐learning etc. This paper focuses on the digital divide in the domain of economy, represented by enterprises.
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