Evolution, not revolution The digital divide in American and Australian contexts

Revolutions in information and communication technology (ICT) can have a profound impact on the relations between people, nations and institutions. Gutenberg’s invention of a printing press with movable type (circa 1439), for instance, meant that European literature could suddenly be mass produced. The technology transformed the speed and volume at which information was gathered, collated and disseminated – information which permeated then changed society. Similarly, the telegraph, telephone, radio and television dramatically altered the way disparate and estranged humans and states interacted with one another. Such changes were far reaching, but none are quite on the scale of the digital revolution in ICT.