Reassessing Korean IT Policy to Link Rural Online: The Missing Gap of Korean Rural E-Readiness

Abstract

Enormous efforts to address the rural-urban ‘digital divide’ has been taken by the Korean government to bring development to rural areas. Despite its extensive achievement its outcomes are insufficient whereby improvements mainly occur in technology diffusion, while rural residents’ reluctant attitudes and limited IT use remain unchanged. This paper reassesses the case of Korean rural IT policies using the notion of information capital which requires not only technology but also other non-IT related elements such as people’s knowledge, capabilities, and social and economic network to process information use. Korean rural communities’ basic education, welfare services, and other political and economic capacities are not well prepared to easily react to online activities. Policy actions must broaden their scope to integrate non-IT related assistance programs, and consider empowering other complementary elements within the broad social capital.