COMP6044   Just another ECS Blogs weblog

Etymologically, demography comes from the Greek words demos (for population) and graphia (for description or writing).Demography stated informally tries to answer the following questions:
– How many people of what kind are where?
– How did the number of people come about?
– What is the implication of the number derived?
Formally, demography is the scientific study of human population and its dynamics.
Demography deals with aggregates of individuals, it describes the characteristics of population. Most demographic studies employ quantitative and statistical methods, features of population are often measured by counting people in the whole population or sub-populations and comparing the counts.
Population size is a number with absolute and relative connotations. In the absolute sense, human population size quantifies the number of people in a country, region or space. Beyond the numerical quantity is the concern for distribution both within and among country, region, or space, this accounts for the relative connotation. Resulting from the concepts of population size and distribution is population density which is the relationship between population size, distribution, and the space that contains it.
Population density is consequential to the well being of the population. Notably, population density explains the viral spread of disease, knowledge, and ideas; epidemics is most likely to occur in a densely populated space as knowledge and ideas can easily diffuse.
Population study is concerned with the size and distribution of identifiable subgroups within populations. This concern yields information on the structure and composition of population. The characterization (categorization or classification) of population relies on endless list of traits- age, gender, education, religion, income, occupation, language, race, ethnicity etc. However, some traits are more useful; traits that change less frequently or has predictable pattern of change. Age and gender are the basic and most influential characteristics to demographic processes, hence they are known as demographic characteristics.
The dynamics of population is rooted in the basic demographic processes of birth, death, and migration. Basically, population changes can be associated with leaving or entering; to leave means dying or emigrating and to enter means being born or immigrating. This fact can be depicted in the basic demographic equation that follows:
Pt+1 = Pt + Bt ,t +1 – Dt ,t +1 + It ,t+1 – Et ,t+1
where Pt is the number of persons at time t and the number of persons one year later is Pt ,t+1; Bt ,t+1 and Dt ,t+1 are the number of births and deaths that occur between times t and t+1 respectively; It ,t+1 and Et ,t+1 represent the number of immigrants to and emigrants from the population respectively between times t and t+1.
The difference between Bt ,t+1 and Dt ,t+1 is referred to as natural increase (or decrease when the difference is negative) while the difference between It ,t+1 and Et ,t+1 is known as positive net international migration when the difference is positive and negative net international migration otherwise.
Growth in demographic parlance refers to change in population size. From the demographic equation above, growth means the difference between Pt+1 and Pt even though this difference is negative. The interplay of demographic processes results in population growth as well as compositional changes in population.

Readings
David Yaukey and Douglas L. Anderton, Demography: The Study of Human Population 2nd ed., 2001
Dudley L. Poston, JR. and Leon F. Bouvier, Population and Society: An Introduction to Demography, 2010

Digital divide is generally defined as gap in access to digital technology marked by age, disability, race, gender, culture, religion, location , and socioecomic status.
The advent of the Internet and the invention of the world wide web has transformed our societies. The potential of this transformation is not in doubt, however, what will happen to the gap between “information haves” and “Information have nots”? Will the gap be eroded or aggravated?
The series of post will focus on causes and consequences of the inequalities and inequities (if any) that exist in the digital world.
Historically, there are two poles to the issue of digital divide – optimist and pessimist views. The optimists see the transformation into the digital world as an opportunity for social change where digital technology will significantly increase the quality of life and remedy the inequalities of the non-digital world whereas the pessimists posit that the inequalities and other ills of the pre-digital world would be reproduced in the digital world as such digital technology is not an opportunity for social change.

The definition of digital divide suggests that digital divide is dimensional in space, time, and context. As a result, recourse to the fields of demography and design science is a requirement for understanding these dimensions.
Demography as the study of size and composition of population, internal changes to the composition , and the relationship between the sociophysical changes and the environment. The demographic arm will provide qualitative and quantitative handles to explore the space and time dimensions of digital divide.

If digital technology is artificial then it could be treated as a work of art. With design science, a clearer insight into designing can be gained. Design science is a system of logically related knowledge, which should contain and organize the complete knowledge about and for designing. This knowledge will facilitate the understanding of digital technology in context. Is digital technology a misfit? Watch out!!

Likewise, design science as a system of logically related knowledge, which should contain and organize the complete knowledge about and for designing is crucial to the understanding of digital technology in context. Is digital technology a misfit? Watch out!!

Bibliography
Notes on the Synthesis of Form by Christopher Alexander
Demography: The Study of Human Population 2nd ed. by David Yaukey and Douglas L. Anderton
Digital Divide by Pippa Norris