INFORMATION SOCIETY AND RURAL AREAS

The promoting of the citizens participation in the legislative processes through the eParticipation is a measure which must be preceded by the strong implementation of the Information Society in each country. The development of specific actions requires a deep knowledge of the local reality. So, the analysis of the internet introduction in a territory should be a previous step if we want satisfactory and specific results.

In the case of Aragón, the regional Government created de Aragonese Observatory for the Information Society (OASI) with the aim of having compete and updated information on the impact of NNTT in Aragón. This organism has developed a study based on Access to internet (broadband, internet at home…) and people using internet (ages, sex, activities in internet…) to know the exact situation of the introduction of Internet.

Aragón is in the national average in the most relevant indicators, as the percentage of users. But the characteristic defining the situation is the gap between urban and rural areas. Thus, almost 57% of urban homes have computer and form them 80% have broadband connexion. The rural areas are in 23 points below.

A basic indicator to assess the introduction of the Information Society is to know the number of users. Aragon has increased the number of users to get to 63,40%. Once again the difference between urban and rural areas is relevant being this difference in more than 20 percentage points. According to sex, 70,82% of men are users face to 55,79% of women. Studying the distribution of users by age, we can see that the percentage of users decreases while the age increases. In fact, the low percentage of users in Spain in comparison with other countries is caused by the low introduction of internet in medium and advanced age.

According to the data, the introduction of Internet is 100% among the students and people combining studies and work, and reaches the 80 % in workers. This second data is relevant specially taking into account that the national average for workers is in 63,40%. The two main sectors of the population which are being delayed in the use of Internet is composed by housewives and retired people.

The main activities done in Internet by the users are related to communication, email, forums, on-line shopping and chats. But the survey we are using included questions about the webs for public administrations. This study establish 4 different levels as follows: level 1 (information about steps in the administrative procedure, where doing it, what documents…), level 2 (download documents), level 3 (bilateral interaction, making documents but the it is compulsory for the user going personally to the administration to submit extra documents or sign them) and finally, level 4 (transactions, or in other words, the whole procedure is done by a computer tool). According to these levels, almost 60% of users are in level 1, but the percentage decreases linearly to 10% of users doing procedures in level 4. Anyway, for the last data is important taking into account that there are few administration offering services to citizens in level 4. The gap mentioned above between urban and rural areas is still visible, although they are less important than in other indicators.

As a summary, the result of the study states the special gap of Aragón between the capital and the rest of the region. Thus, the percentage of homes with computer availability is 8 points higher in Zaragoza that in the next area (Huesca). But, on the other hand, when we have a look at the indicators concerning the use of Internet, we can observe that the data are similar in urban and rural areas. That is why this gap seems to be more quantitative than qualitative.