The Internet for the Public Interest: Overcoming the Digital Divide in Brazil

Abstract

Latin America is quickly becoming one of the world’s fastest growing Internet markets, with access to computers rapidly expanding in countries like Brazil. The Internet and new communication technologies have been hailed by various scholars and cyber enthusiasts as key elements that can bring development to countries of the Global South, and contribute to the reduction of inequalities between nations (Cardoso 2010; Silverstone 2000). The 2005 Pesquisa National por Amostra de Domicilios of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics BIGE underscored the existence of 32.1 million Internet users in Brazil. This represents 21 per cent of the population of ages ten years and over. In the 2008 study, this number went up to 55.9 million, or 34.8 per cent, and is rapidly growing.