Kista, the Digital Divide?

Ester Barinaga

Analytical and empirical studies of the network society describe a society saturated with technical devices and inhabited by well-educated people in high-status jobs. Entrepreneurship and innovation seem to be the key words in such a society. Yet, this picture is an oversimplified one.

Kista is the paramount of the network society in Northern Europe and as such a good place to study and reflect upon the so called network society. Based on an ethnographic study of the region and numerous interviews of its dwellers I problematize the idea of the network society. By showing an area divided between those "connected" and those "off-line", between "haves" and "have-nots", I offer a more nuanced description of the "society of the future..