i agree with robin. overcoming the "digital divide" will be possible 
only by overcoming capitalism and substituting it by a democratic form 
of socialism and by making information available free to all. academica 
is just like all subsystems of capitalism first of all a stratified 
system where academic publishing corporations accumulate capital by 
selling books.

the strategy for selling handbooks is frequently that the publishing 
houses assume that these books will mainly be bought by libraries and 
that this strategy sell enough copies for producing huge profits. the 
publisher of this "handbook of research on overcoming digital divides", 
igi global, has particularly specialized in capital accumulation by 
publishing handbooks.

chika said that change can only come from below. right, but grassroots 
political change also needs knowledge support, so it is good for 
activism to have access to the latest knowledge about the digital 
divide. so if the price of a book on digital divide is $495 or 
respectively $745 or $990 as in this case, then this deepens the digital 
divide and the whole project of researching the digital divide becomes 
an absurd, ideological, uncritical farce that only shows again displays 
total corporate domination of the economy.

we need a socialist open content academic publishing system, which also 
seems to be a sort of alternative medium.

cheers, christian

-- 
- - -
Priv.-Doz. Dr. Christian Fuchs
Associate Professor
Unified Theory of Information Research Group
ICT&S Center
University of Salzburg
Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18
5020 Salzburg
Austria
[log in to unmask]
Phone +43 662 8044 4823
Personal Website: http://fuchs.uti.at
Research Group: http;//www.uti.at
Editor of 
tripleC - Cognition, Communication, Co-Operation | Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society
http://www.triple-c.at
Fuchs, Christian. 2008. Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York: Routledge. 
http://fuchs.uti.at/?page_id=40



Robin Cheesman schrieb:
> Honestly, I find it somewhat contradictory to believe that a book 
> priced between $500 and $1000 can contribute much to overcoming 
> digital divides. In any case, the perspective will hardly be from 
> below ...
>
> El 17-09-2009 21:29, Martha Wallner escribió:
>> FYI - http://www.igi-global.com/reference/details.asp?id=34612
>>
>> Description:
>>
>> Recently, rapid developments in the digital divide have attracted the 
>> attention of both the academic and political worlds due to the 
>> reduction of information gaps.
>>
>> The *Handbook of Research on Overcoming Digital Divides: Constructing 
>> an Equitable and Competitive Information Society* presents a 
>> comprehensive, integrative, and global view of what has been called 
>> the digital divide. Collecting an international collaboration of 
>> experts, this Handbook of Research offers policy makers, 
>> academicians, managers, and researchers a complete reference source 
>> to the interactions, evolutions, and policies developing within the 
>> field.
>