21 Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 2 The Digital Divide, Framing and Mapping the Phenomenon Andrea Calderaro European University Institute, Italy IntroductIon Since the declaration of the digital revolution, many hypotheses on its impact have been pro- posed. Today, new technologies affect our daily life, influencing most of our activities as part of a worldwide political and economic equilibrium. However, despite their pervasiveness, new tech- nologies do not influence regions equally across the world and do not include all of society in their processes in the same way. This existing difference in the use of information technology takes the name of Digital Divide. Though the phenomenon is as old as the digi- tal advent, a generally accepted definition of the Digital Divide does not yet exist. Official reports published on the subject by international organiza- tions - Millennium Report, 2000; Okinawa Charter, 2000; DOTForce, 2001; Plain of Action, 2003 - do not clarify what the Digital Divide is. Each of them emphasizes a different aspect of the issue. The general literature is also ambiguous in this regard. Some authors stress the economic aspects of the so-called “digital revolution” (Castells, 1996; Chinn AbstrAct This chapter explores the global dimension of the digital divide. It frames the concept and maps the status and the causes of the phenomenon today. The irst part investigates how the digital divide can be measured, framing the question and some of the trends foreseen by scholars on the phenomenon. The second part provides the current status of the digital divide, mapping the distribution of the usage of the Internet worldwide with some national indicators and measuring how economic factors cause some of the digital inequalities. The chapter then maps the worldwide unequal distribution of some of the infrastructure of the Internet. By comparing the different measures of the digital divide, the chapter inally provides some conclusions on the expectations regarding the trend of the phenomenon. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-699-0.ch002