ICTlogy

Abstract:

In this article a methodology is presented to extract indicators that appropriately measure the information society and the digital divide between countries and the relevant statistics that the majority of countries can collect. With the help of content analysis, the entropy method, and consideration of the diffusion aspects of digitalization, 37 reputable information society and digital divide models are analyzed to indentify “core information and communication technology (ICT) indicators.” To overcome the limitation of the nonexistence of data, the information and the knowledge embedded in information society and digital divide models are employed as proxies for experts’ opinions for extracting the core ICT indicators. Comparison of the prior indicators and the proposed ones reveals that the former ignore three important dimensions: e-learning, e-government, and networked world enablers.