Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the existence of digital divide at the regional level empirically in Turkey. For this purpose, the digital divide of 12 regions at the TR Nuts 1 level was analyzed using EDAS and MAIRCA methods. The analysis was made separately with the 2011 and August 2021 data, and in this way, the ten-year variation of the digital divide between the regions was revealed. As a result of the analysis, it has been revealed that there is a significant digital gap between regions in Turkey and the distribution of this gap within the regions has hardly changed in the last ten years. As of 2021, the ranking of 12 regions regarding digital division has been determined as Istanbul, West Anatolia, East Marmara, Aegean, Mediterranean, Central Anatolia, East Black Sea, West Marmara, Southeast Anatolia, West Black Sea, Middle East Anatolia, Northeast Anatolia regions. The parallelism of the results of this study with previous empirical studies in the literature reveals that the digital divide in Turkey has continued with similar differences for many years. This paper is different from other studies in the literature in that it includes the comparison of the last ten years and makes use of multi-criteria decision-making methods in the detection of the digital divide.

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