Introduction	Advocacy	Professions	Communities	Pedagogy	References

Rethinking the Digital Divide

Lamberti and Richards argue that the term digital divide needs reformulation. They favor instead digital divergence, which reflects the "web of complex, technologically mediated material and discursive situations in which digital access, literacy, and advocacy are at stake" (p. 5). More succinctly, these editors favor studying technology use on a local, situated, and contextual level—their "rhetorical approach." Indeed, this awareness of complexity and heterogeneity reflects the kind of critical thinking, teaching, and research Cynthia L. Selfe (1999) seemed to envision when she insisted writing teachers must "pay attention" to technology in their discipline and especially on the local level. Lamberti and Richards argue that the term digital divide brings with it connotations of simplicity and the kinds of top-down legislation that often ignores local agency.

Next

Reviewed by  Vincent D. Robles  Iowa State University

Adrienne P. Lamberti and Anne R. Richards, eds. Complex Worlds: Digital Culture, Rhetoric, and Professional Communication Amityville: NY, Baywood, 2011.

"...the digital has the potential to help us generate clearer and more sophisticated understandings of our worlds—global and local, material and imaginative—in ways heretofore impossible" (Lamberti & Richards, p. 13).