Measurment On Influencing Factors Of Regional Digital Divide In China And Policy Recommendations

It is self-evident that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play important roles in economic development, but there has been great imbalance during the diffusion of ICTs, which is called the "Digital Divide".Digital Divide exists not only among countries, but also in the different regions or classes within a country. The Digital Divide is an obstacle to economic development and an influence factor to the development and stability of the society. Hence how to bridge the Digital Divide has attracted worldwide attention.There is a distinct regional digital divide in China which is increasing year by year. To measure the quantitative regional digital divide, find out the characteristics and real factors of regional digital divide in China are important prerequisite of targeted policies and strategies to bridge the regional digital divide. So the studies on establishing a systematic, comprehensive, practical and workable model of the factors and measurement for digital divide are of great theoretical and practical significance. In the process of bridging the digital divide, with the emergence of prosumers followed by the applications of Web 2.0 services, the internet content resources grows rapidly which also raises new problems of Internet content regulation. Meanwhile, to bridge the digital divide needs the participation of multi-stakeholders including ont only the government but also telecommunications operators, which can bridge the digital divide in an effective way with the value-added services'development, and so on.Based on the review of literatures, the conceptual definition of digital divide is defined as "The Digital Divide refers to the gaps of access and use of ICTs, which is represented by the Internet, and traditional information technologies in different social groups." While the operational definition is defined as "The Digital Divide is the gap of the informatization levels." Based on these two definitions and previous research, the China's digital divide influence factors relations model,which can also be the ideal digital divide measurement model, is established by using the interpretive structural model (ISM). The model shows that information content resources (ICR), information infrastructure resources (â…¡R) and information use (IU) are the three direct factors to digital divide.Based on the above model and from the respect of three direct factors, the informatization level indices (ILI) are established by the integrated use of factor analysis, principal component analysis and analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Indicators in the indices are all representative, comparable and feasible, which highlights the information content resources and information use of Internet by means of the number and weights of relative indicators.Based on the conceptual and operational definitions of digital divide, the general conceptual measurement model of digital divide, the measurement model of divide base on the absolute difference and time distance are established to measure the absolute difference and time distance of informatization levels, information content resources, information infrastructure resources and information use among 31 regions in China.The absolute difference and time distance of informatization levels and direct factors of the digital divide are measured in this paper. In the time distance measurement, a time distance calculation method based on dynamic growth rate is given.According to the three-dimensional comparison among the divide indices or the divide's time distance indices of the three direct factors, and the conclusion comparison between the obvious difference measurement and the time distance measurement, following conclusions are made:the absolute differences and the time distances of the three direct factors of the same provice are all negative or positive in most of the regions.The yearly development of the digital divide index (DDI) has the Mathew Effect, while the digital divide's time distance index (DDTDI) does not. The regions with high informatization level and lead for the average level of the nation should follow the priority of "ICR>IU>IIR" to bridge the digital divide, while the regions with low informatization level and lag behind the average level of the nation should follow the priority of "IIR>ICR>IU". There are differences in the "bridged or not" conclusions in the measurement of absolute difference and time distance. Policy recommendations of regional development priority path raised by the use of absolute differences are kind of actual departed, so it is of great necessary to use both the two methods to measure digital divide.In this paper, hierarchical clustering method of distance measure is used to cluster the 31 regions based on the ILI, and the conclusion shows that there is a significant "high-east and low-west" regional characteristic of the informatization level.Hierarchical clustering method of related measure is used to cluster the regions into 15 "promotion types" based on the rankings of three direct factors for each province in each year. Provinces are divided into different "promotion types" which can be important references for policy making.Policies for bridging the regional digital divide in China should be made from two angels:the angel of regions and the angel of direct factors of digital divide. The main bodies of polices should include the government and other stakeholders.Information content resources need to be enriched, but the Internet information-garbage, especially the harmful information is not useful content resource. The introduction of Web 2.0 raises new problems of Internet content regulation. This paper sets up a three-person game model including government, Web 2.0 Internet service operators and prosumers and discusses the optimal regulation intensity of them both in non-cooperative and cooperative cases.Cooperation can reduce the optimal regulation intensity and bring more profit for the players.When side payments are allowed, cooperation is especially important for the government and Internet operators. Cooperation and side payments should be encouraged and realized in various ways to effectively regulate the Web 2.0 Internet content. Suggestions on cooperation patterns are also given in this paper.Mobile value-added services based on customized terminals are good ways to enrich the information content resources and to promote the information use,whose value chain have the typical characteristics of two-sided markets.The paper discusses pricing models for mobile value-added services based on customized terminals with two agents on seller side, which has not been addressed by previous research. The paper discusses how to attract more CPs/SPs, terminal manufacturers and end users through pricing strategies based on the premise of maximizing the return of operators. At the participants'accumulation stage, operators should attract customers (including personal customers and business customers) to log in to the platform based on their own advantages in resources of customers by using various kinds of propagandas and promotions, even by free or subsidized way. Operators should train customers' consumption habit of using the mobile value-added services based on customized terminals so as to promote healthy development of platforms.When the participants have been gathered to a certain size, the two-sided market will enter the stage of stable development, rational pricing model can ensure stable operation of the platform, lower the "churn rate" of participants away from the platform on both sides.Network size, cross-network externalities, number of transactions and platform matching technology are the main factors influencing price levels that should be considered in specific pricing.Operator should select the appropriate price structure to facilitate the platform of healthy development, thus bridging the digital divide.