Spatial Distribution of Intra-Urban Digital Divide in Istanbul

The subject of unequal access to and use of the information technologies started to focus on the concept of the socalled "digital divide" has started to attract attention since late 90s. Before that time, more general concepts such as information inequality, information gap or knowledge gap and computer or media literacy were used. Preliminary digital divide research led to the equivalency of media or technology access with physical access. Currently, the majority of the literature still focuses on physical access. However, since the year 2002, an increasing number of researchers suggest to go 'beyond access', to reframe the overly technical concept of the digital divide and to pay more attention to social, psychological and cultural backgrounds. The goal of this paper is to provide a new methodology to understand the spatial variation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use in Istanbul Metropolitan Area using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and K-means Clustering Algorithm. The research is carried out through a questionnaire employed to 1140 individuals in 10 districts of Istanbul in Turkey with a wide range of socio-economic compositions.