1Department of Visual Communication Avinashilingam University for Women, Coimbatore, India.
2Department of Communication, P.S.G. College of Arts & Science, Coimbatore, India.
Information communication technology (computers and Internet) is currently gaining entry into corporate organizations and institutions in developing countries. It is being seen as a form of new technology that is having the potential to deliver economic growth, employment, skills generation and empowerment. Albeit, organizations and institutions tend to view ICT as technical product to solve a technical problem and pay scant regard to the social and cultural problems confronted by their employees. To prevent such problems, the researcher advocates the firm establishment of groundwork probing into the problems and barriers faced by ICT users and non-users. There is mounting conformity, however, that the impact of ICTs in developing countries is not neutral, necessitating a cautious approach to ICT-based projects. The paper presents findings from Coimbatore, a district in Tamil Nadu, in South India showing significant impacts that organizations straining hard to catch up with technology is consequential more by an individuals' own competency and skills rather than just having access to technology. The city's budding focus on information and communication technology provides an added advantage in delving into the use of new technologies and their benefits to them. The paper employs quantitative analysis to investigate into the computer usage pattern and intensity, to deliberate on issues that go beyond describing the digital divide to analyzing digital inequality.
