In today's liberal, deregulatory environment, cooperative solutions are hardly in vogue. To the contrary, competition is the prevailing maxim as well as the criterion according to which all policies are typically assessed. Not surprisingly, therefore, the problem of the global digital divide is typically viewed as one of technology deployment, while its solution is sought — more often than not — by promoting trade liberalization and support for foreign investment In laying out a cooperative approach to address the "digital divide" in rural areas, this paper calls for a new epistemological approach. Market strategies are appropriate only to the extent that markets function welL Such is not the case in rural areas. For advanced networking technologies to promote rural economic development, what is needed is not so much competitive market strategies but rather social innovations that can not only serve to foster deployment but also compensate for the multiple market failures typically found in rural communities.
展开▼
