2015 Volume 4 Issue 1 Pages 31-41
There is a growing concern over the disparity in the penetration rate of the Internet between rural and urban areas since such gap are alleged to trigger social and economic disparities between them. Although our knowledge about barriers against internet use has been gradually increasing, we have little knowledge about how to remove those barriers.
To cope with this issue, we aimed to explain individual motivation of internet utilization and to identify factors preventing the utilization of internet. Questionnaire and interview survey were conducted directing at residents of three rural communities of Kyoto prefecture.
Our analysis identified the three factors that help overcome the barriers: 1) remove worries resulting from the internet utilization, 2) provide opportunity to learn the potential of and the way to use the internet, and 3) inform various advantages that people could benefit from the internet.
