Content area
Full Text
1. Introduction
The current health crisis caused by a coronavirus (COVID-19) is transforming into a severe global social and economic crisis affecting both developed and developing countries to varying degrees. A war is waged against this invisible enemy, and governments worldwide are mobilizing to save lives. The digital has played a leading role in the fight against coronavirus. E-learning, teleworking, drones, robots, connected electronic bracelets and other technologies were deadly weapons in the battle against the epidemic. However, many countries, individuals and companies have not been able to take advantage of these opportunities offered by digital technologies to mitigate the crisis’s negative effect. This is caused due to the digital divide, which refers to the gap in access to, use of or impact of information and communication technology between individuals, households, countries, […]. COVID-19 has further exposed and exacerbated digital inequalities (Beaunoyer et al., 2020).
To get the most out of information and communication technology (ICT) and keep the development promises of the digital era, countries must reduce the digital divide because it is one of the most challenging problems facing the information society. The reason arises from the digital divide’s very nature because it is a vague and extensive concept that applies to different situations (Rallet and Rochelandet, 2004). By now, a vast array of workes have been conducted to study the digital divide phenomenon (Scheerder et al., 2017; Karar, 2019; Hidalgo et al., 2020; Gladkova and Ragnedda, 2020; Unwin, 2020). These studies have made it possible to offer a variety of definitions and different measures and determinants. Still, they have not yet been able to tackle the phenomenon precisely and exhaustively (Scheerder et al., 2017). Some questions remain unresolved, and in our opinion, the studies carried out lack more exhaustiveness. Examples include quantitative and qualitative empirical studies, as well as literature reviews. Therefore, this article aims to answer these flowing questions:
What does the DD mean and what are its different dimensions in the relevant literature?
How to measure the DD and what are its determinants?
What are the DD dimensions, which behind the effectiveness of the digital transformation revealed by the COVID-19 and then require more attention?
To answer these questions we draw up the state of the...