Rural-Urban Digital Divide in Romania

The last two decades witnessed the sudden raise in importance of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Some societies have been quick to embrace the benefits of ICT, while others have used the new technologies in a rather limited way. A new term, “digital divide,” was coined to describe the gap between the societies using ICT on a large scale and those with limited access. Much was written with respect to the causes of this gap. Factors such as socioeconomic conditions, geographical position, tradition, social and individual values are considered to play major roles in the creation of the digital divide. The vast majority of the studies have focused on the digital performance of cities with far less attention being paid to what was happening in the villages. Arguably, the villages would greatly benefit, and the existent data shows that in many societies a significant rural-urban digital divide is already in place. The goal of this chapter is to assess the urban-rural digital divide in Romania in terms of official website performances by evaluating five components: security and personal data protection, usability, content, type of services, and digital democracy. The authors conclude that in Romania the rural-urban digital divide is extremely large. Based on their conclusions, they offer suggestions for future studies and policies.