What Role Can Educational Multimedia Play in Narrowing the Digital Divide?

This paper explores the assertion that the development of educational multimedia has a key role to play in effectively reducing the impacts of the digital divide particularly in the context of developing nations. This assertion is based on the premise that the global diffusion of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) should not be guided by a technologically deterministic approach but situated in the context of an appropriate development and critical theory of technology approach, which takes into account a broad range of social, cultural, political and economic enabling factors. Such an approach is a feature of a social and community informatics framework. Within this context, facilitating the development of electronic literacy, culturally relevant online content and interfaces through the development of educational multimedia can assist the process of social inclusion within developing countries. Before examining the role of educational multimedia in this context, the paper critically analyses the concept of the digital divide and why Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have come to be seen as the panacea to the problems of global development