Digital preparedness versus the digital divide: A confusion of means and ends

Abstract

Abstract Composite indexes of digital preparedness, such as the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) and the Digital Opportunity Index (DOI), have caused a great deal of confusion in the more general literature on the digital divide. For whereas one would expect preparedness to be an input into the utilization of information technologies (the digital divide), the recent indicators add inputs and outputs, or means and ends. I suggest instead two separate indexes for means and ends, which can be more usefully related to one another in terms of productivity (one index divided by the other), or as dependent and independent variables (one index in a functional relationship to the other).