The Dualistic Separation: A Study Of Urban-rural Internet Usage Gap

Internet is changing the society profoundly,while digitization has brought all round changes in our daily life,but it continues to be used by more powerful and resourceful groups,deepening the inequality of the original social structure.The report of the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that vigorously building a digital China has once again highlighted the importance of the urban and rural digital divide.When the urban-rural access gap is gradually narrowing,the polarization between the rich and the poor in information comes mainly from differences in Internet use,making the use gap become a new key issue.This study is about the relationship between urban-rural areas and Internet use,and explores the performance and mechanism of urban-rural use gap.In order to understand the characteristics and causes of the urban-rural use gap in China,this study draws on cultural consumption theory and digital inequality theory,with the data of CFPS 2020 to explore the urban-rural areas differences in Internet use from the time and content.Introduce education as an intermediary variable to explore the impact mechanism on classification of urban-rural areas and Internet use.The study found that there is existing urban-rural Internet usage gap,having significant differences in Internet use between urban and rural areas.Specifically,in terms of usage time,urban residents spend more time online than rural residents.In terms of the content,urban residents are more inclined to use the Internet to learn,while rural residents are to entertainment.The "knowledge gap" between urban and rural areas may persist for a long time,exacerbating the reproduction of urban-rural segregation.The intermediary effect analysis shows that education plays a mediating role in explaining the Internet use differences between urban and rural,the classification of urban and rural areas leads to a gap in Internet usage through differences in educational resources.Compared to rural residents,urban residents have higher education level,resulting in longer Internet usage time and higher quality of Internet usage.Although there are urban-rural Internet usage gap,the development of technology can bridge the digital divide between urban and rural areas to some extent.In summary,in contemporary China,the dual separation between urban and rural areas is an important factor that causes differences in Internet use.It is recommended to continuously narrow the urban-rural education gap and bridge the urban-rural use gap.