Information Intention: A Concept to Explain the Digital Gap--A Research on the Differences of Individual Informatization in China

This research focuses on the digital gap in China. Based on the data from The National Survey of Information Technology Use in China primary and secondary schools 2004, which is the latest large survey of informatization in china. At first, this study analyzes the digital gap in current China. We selected 15 provinces as samples, their data helped us to know about how the digital gap is in China nowadays. The statistic data showed that there are significant differences between the east China and the central-west China on the dimension of hardware. But there were some results that couldn´t be explained by current theories. Then this study drew the conclusion that it was the individual differences that partly caused the digital gap in China. Among all the individual factors that influence the digital gap, this study created the dimension of ¿Information Intention¿ to complete the structure of information literacy. Information intention means that the subject can not only sense the value and the latent meaning of information, but also form positive internal wanting of information, change the wanting into the action, be willing to connect the information with actual work, learning, life. It is a habitual trend to information, on behalf of the tendentiousness of the person. A person with information intention is in the open, receivable state, being willing to take, process, select, evaluate, transfer information. Finally, this study used data and interviews to prove how ¿information intention¿ as an individual difference causes the digital gap in China.