Narrowing or Widening the Digital Divide?

Though the number of China’s Internet users exceeded that of the US with a total of 253 million in 2008, the diffusion of the Internet in China is uneven. Most of China’s Internet users are urban, young and with higher income. This study argues that such an uneven distribution of Internet users in China reflects China’s unbalanced economic developments. Moreover, it examines the consequences of unequal Internet access between Internet users and non-users from a knowledge-gap perspective. Findings show that The Internet widens the digital divide between the two groups.