Information Inequality in a Global Context
Access to the internet and the news that brings should be a universal right. While this is true for most of the developed world, most of the planet can’t access the internet, either through outages, lack of infrastructure or censorship. The outcome of this is a form of information inequality, where a large portion of the population cannot access the information to make informed political decisions and hear the news that is important to them. And while the inequality itself is bad, what is worse is that this often affects marginalized groups out proportionally.
One of the most rampant forms of inequality is women’s access to the news. They are under-represented in both management and production of the news which has an effect that can be seen since only 10% of news worldwide focus on women and women’s issues. Additionally, only 21% of women in developing countries have access to the internet, which can really be an issue considering how much information is sent online.
This is not a problem just for women but also non-English speaking countries. While only 24% of the world speaks English over half of all media published online is in English. This language barrier can become a huge problem considering that English is the default language for most academic journals and that sharing ideas is what pushes research forward.
Overall, information inequality is a global issues and often it is under represented groups that have to work from the side of less information. This can interfere with their abilities to make informed decisions and hurt their education.
https://medium.com/local-voices-global-change/information-inequality-is-a-global-issue-d7df3a65934d