TÁRKI Social Report Reprint Series No 17. Róbert Angelusz, Digital Inequality and Types

Although Hungary is in the initial phase of the diffusion of Internet use, digital inequality in terms of differences in use receives more and more em-phasis, alongside inequality of access. In addition to an essentially quantita-tive approach, concerned with the pace of diffusion of Internet use and iden-tification and characterization of social subgroups of users, the broadening access now allows the appearance of more qualitative analyses of the nature of Internet use, of its various ways and types. The typological analysis based on a kind of ‘uses and gratifications ’ ap-proach to this new medium of communication, and starting out of data re-garding several dozens of specific ways of Internet use, delineated four char-acteristically distinct components of functional types: uses with an emphasis on ’knowledge’, ‘enjoyment’, ‘public concerns ’ or ‘high-tech’. The knowl-edge-oriented area of use, which occasionally generates further cultural ad-vantages, is where the usage gap is most likely to divide the population of Internet users, and where further socio-cultural inequality may develop