Bridging the Gap With QR Codes

Abstract

Turkey was at 40th as per Google's Our Mobile Planet five years ago. There are hardly a few counties, in these indices, which had seen such an upsurge of smartphone penetration rate in a short period of time. With the immense proliferation of smartphones there comes all types of uses and gratification consumers could attach to the smart gadgets. QR Codes were the inventions of same decade and were taken by storm by these smartphone consumers in Turkey. Past studies conducted in economically and digitally developed countries concluded that research and development in the area of QR Codes is in the field of advertising and marketing mainly. There are hardly advanced discussions from the dimension of media and communication. This study explores the basic themes and expansion of the idea of digital literacy around the academia; furthermore, a case is presented of how digital literacy is linked with digital divide in developing economies and how QR Codes can synergize the process of digital growth of societies and how QR Codes are addressed around the world.