The diffusion of the Internet in Chile

Latin America is the hottest market in the world. It has surpassed Asia to become the world’s fastest growing region. In 1997, total regional economic growth topped 5% while the leading economics of Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Chile averaged a sizzling 7%. The Latin American economic boom and falling trade barriers have brought an explosion of demand for all types of products and services. To communicate this demand, the Web is being adopted as an interface between the communities of Latin America and the English-speaking communities on the Internet. This paper begins with a brief political history of Chile during the last two decades as a background to the country’s changing attitudes towards technology. Section 2 discusses the demographics of Internet users in Latin America generally and Chile specifically. Section 3 reports the experiences and attitudes of a typical Internet user in Chile. The final section draws some tentative conclusions