In relation to the article, the main point that I would like to discuss is developing countries having higher potential than developed countries. I disagree to this statement. There are many factors in determining the potential of a country and it is govern by uncontrollable forces of nature. Statistics can only make hypothesis on the issue but it is not 100% accurate.
According to statistics that Euromonitor provide, it is definitely true that these developing countries are catching up. However, there is definitely doubt in the sustainability of these claims displayed by the statistics. There are many different contributing factors when it comes to the measurement of a country’s economic growth. The statistics provided serves as a platform to come out with a hypothesis but it is still not a definite indicator to depict the overall picture of the situation. It is definitely true that the broadband diffusion rates in developing countries has been growing relatively fast as compared to developed countries. In addition, this might not be the representative of a whole country.
For the sake of discussion, I would like to take china as a case study in the analysis of developing countries. In reference to Nanjing marketing group (2011), out of the total internet users in china, only 27.3% come from rural areas while majority of china’s users come from urban areas. This statistic starts questioning to whether the growth would hit a ceiling as internet penetration to urban areas is so much higher than those in rural areas. This also bring the question that would internet continue to grow in rural areas with the limitations of IT infrastructure foundations in those areas.
The Chinese government has been channeling its resources to urban cities such as shanghai and Beijing to continue to spur economic growth towards china’s journey of becoming an economical power in the world. However, the issue would be whether the Chinese government will source some of its resources to rural areas. They probably would not do so in the short run. This would happen but then it definitely would take quite some time to take shape as the basic foundation of building a modernized city is not as easy as it seems, it requires quite a large amount of money, planning and also time. This has made it clear that the government are channeling majority of its resources mainly towards the development of the urban areas. Although, the article mention about the benefit of improvement in disparity in the country, it is not really true in this case. The Digital divide gap in the country remain relatively wide.
This brings me to the point of the contribution of wealth. According to BBC News (2014), the higher end to the social class of China, people are becoming wealthier as time goes by and is spending more money, but it still does not prove that the wealth is being distribute fairly as the rich is becoming richer while the poor is not becoming richer or even worse, they are declining in wealth. This applies to people especially in the rural areas. This shows that statistics are just a consensus of the whole country on average and not a true representative. This then conclude that things cannot be seen in such a way that is assume that everyone is equally affluent.
In addition to the point mention previously, there are also a number of contributing factors in determining a country’s growth in terms of the digital divide. An economy might be hit by certain uncontrollable factors such as financial crisis, natural disasters and political instability. Financial woes might cause currency crisis, for example the Great Depression, which was preceded in many countries by bank runs and stock market crashes. This would then result in the downfall of an economy and indirectly it would also affect the digital divide when there is less absolute resources to distribute and channel amongst the different industries in a country. Natural disasters such as the Japanese tsunami can bring down the economy overnight, where resources are being channel to do recovery work. While political instability, such as the protests in Thailand can deter investors to invest in the country. Developing country would then be slower in terms of recovery since their resources are much lesser as compared to developed countries. These factors are examples that the economic sustainability in the long run would not be definite and cannot be controlled or accurately hypothesis by the sole use of statistics.
In conclusion, statistics alone is insufficient to make definite hypothesis of the progress and growth of a country. Many other unforeseen factors and policies might impact the absolute growth of the country. Government policies might be curve towards development in urban areas and rural areas continue to lag behind. It is hard to predict whether the growth in urban areas would hit a ceiling like developed countries and slow down growth, as the government continue to channel resources in these areas. Wealthier communities continue to be wealthier while the poor stay the same or becomes poorer.
The development of IT landscape of rural areas still remains slow and would not be well-develop in the short run. Natural disasters and financial turmoil might also immobilize the countries growth rate and recovery would be slow as compared to developed countries who holds more resources. With this, developing countries are still lagging behind in comparison to their developed countries counterparts.
References:
Euromonitor International. (2011, February 2). Global digital divide persists but is narrowing. Retrieved August 25, 2014, from http://blog.euromonitor.com/2011/02/global-digital-divide-persists-but-is-narrowing-1.html
BBC news. (2014, Feb 2) Affluence of Chinese is growing. Retrieved September 6, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140203-the-rise-of-chinas-wealth-dragon
Nanjing marketing. (2011, Oct 28). China rural urban internet usage. Retrieved September 6, 2014, http://www.nanjingmarketinggroup.com/blog/rural-chinese-internet-usage-2011_10_27
Hi Louis,
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned that you disagree with the statement in your thesis, it does not allow any room for discussion. Also, you mentioned that there are many factors and uncontrollable factors that determine the potential of a country. This is a bit vague.
Actually your thesis could be found in your conclusion. Perhaps, you can summarize your conclusion into one sentence by focusing on main idea and use it as your thesis.
Good effort anyway!
Thanks, Louis, for your effort with this reader response. It's a very detailed and intelligent discussion. You seem to have an accurate summary and a clear transition to the response. You also provide lots of detail in your response to support your claim that the blogpost is wrong claiming that 'developing countries having higher potential than developed countries.' My question though is whether or not the Euromonitor article ever made such a claim in such a general manner.
ReplyDeleteHere is what I read in the article: Business opportunities will differ from region to region: in terms of sheer growth in Internet market size, developing countries such as Nigeria, China and Indonesia will top the list. In terms of per capita spending on Internet retailing, as well as usage of more sophisticated services like mobile broadband, developed countries such as the USA, Japan and Western Europe retain attractive potential.
It doesn't seem to state what you say it states.
That being said, I appreciate your focus on the difference between urban versus rural growth and potential in China.
As for other matters to consider, there's a problem in this sentence:
According to Euromonitor's blogpost on ‘Global digital divide persists but is narrowing’ (2011), it infer from the statistics provided by Euromonitor International from trade sources/national statistics that developed economies will continue to enjoy higher broadband diffusion rate due to larger government expenditure, advance IT framework and higher wages that allow ownership to computers.
You shouldn't use 'according to X' together with a citation/reporting verb + noun clause.
Other language issues:
-- ownership to computers
-- it is govern by
-- the government are channeling (a many similar subject-verb agreement problems)
-- Although, the article mention about the benefit of improvement in disparity in the country, (punctuation?)
-- would not be well-develop
Thank you for the comments, I'll read the article again and make amendments and improvement on my 3rd draft!
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