First Monday

Global perspectives on digital inequalities and solutions to them by Laura Robinson, Jeremy Schulz, Massimo Ragnedda, Noah McClain, Timothy M. Hale, Heloisa Pait, Joseph D. Straubhaar, and Aneka Khilnani with Natalia Tolentino



In this special issue of First Monday, Global perspectives on digital inequalities and solutions to them we bring together scholars from five continents to offer a vista of the field of digital inequalities at the close of the 25th anniversary of the “digital divide.” We have chosen First Monday to publish our scholarship thanks to the foundational work in open access publishing by Edward J. Valauskas, Chief Editor and Founder. First Monday’s approach to sharing knowledge and information free of charge to authors and readers epitomizes the ideals of digital inclusion — a spirit of using technology for social benefit and good that is evermore important as digital technologies grow and spread into every facet of life.

Setting the stage for the rest of the special issue, we open with two articles that offer a panorama of digital inequalities past, present, and future. After offering this wide angle of vision, six additional studies train their analytic foci on several major themes with policy implications: inequalities in use, skills, education, and learning. The extended discussion of policy culminates in two further studies on public policy across the Americas. At the time of writing, we are several months into the COVID-19 pandemic; therefore we close this special issue with a timely inquiry of how digital inequalities are being magnified by the pandemic that is creating new forms of vulnerability.

The first two articles are respectively entitled, “Digital inequalities 2.0: Legacy inequalities in the information age” and “Digital inequalities 3.0: Emergent inequalities in the information age.” A matched pair, the two articles offer a multi-authored extravaganza assembling contributions from over 25 leading scholars in their respective fields. Together, each speaking to their own expertise, co-authors build the concept of the digital inequality stack. Taking its inspiration from the computing stack, the digital inequality stack comprises multiple layers that must work together including the operating system, network, software, and user interface. Across the two articles, authors metaphorically extend the concept of the computing stack to capture the complexities of digital inequalities as they occur on many interrelated levels:

The concept of the digital inequality stack encompasses access to connectivity networks, devices, and software, as well as collective access to network infrastructure. Other layers of the digital inequality stack include differentiated use and consumption, literacies and skills, production and programming, etc. When inequality exists at foundational layers of the digital inequality stack, this often translates into inequalities at higher levels. As we show across these many thematic foci, layers in the digital inequality stack may move in tandem with one another such that all layers of the digital inequality stack reinforce disadvantage.

In the first article, authors show how legacy digital inequalities are resistant to change even 25 years after the initial identification of the “digital divide.” As they substantiate, today a generation later, legacy digital inequalities persist vis-à-vis economic class, gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, aging, disability, healthcare, education, rural residency, networks, and global geographies.

In the second article, the authors argue that legacy inequalities are being joined by a host of new challenges to digital inclusion. In “Digital inequalities 3.0: Emergent inequalities in the information age,” the same scholars contend:

... digital inequalities are becoming implicit in every field of human endeavor and, more importantly, leaving those without resources ever further behind. From educational institutions to policy-makers to non-profit organizations, no one has been unable to equal the playing field or reign in the ever widening advantages conferred to those with digital resources. On the contrary, as we show, each technological “advance” gives birth to new disparities and social problems as digital resources are insinuating themselves into our daily lives.

The article breaks new ground by synthesizing the new faces of digital differentiation across topics including the platform economy, digital labor, automation, big data, the use of algorithms in the criminal justice system, cybersafety, civic engagement, mobility, gaming, well-being and the life course, and assistive technologies. Drawing insight from diverse international perspectives, authors show how, in many ways, emergent digital inequalities are even more insidious than legacy inequalities. Because emergent digital inequalities diminish individuals’ agency, they augment the power of technology creators and big tech. The authors make the compelling claim that this marks “a fundamental shift from categorical and institutional inequalities to radically different inequalities that could not exist in the absence of the Internet.”

From this panorama of the field, we turn to eight articles drawn from around the globe with rich empirical data addressing important debates and policy-driven pieces that probe different approaches to digital inclusion. The first of these is “Who are the limited users of digital systems and media? An examination of U.K. evidence” by Simeon J. Yates, Elinor Carmi, Eleanor Lockley, Alicja Pawluczuk, Tom French, and Stephanie Vincent. Based on the U.K. Ofcom media literacy survey, authors examine key demographic variables that are associated with social disadvantage. They find that individuals not using the Internet share characteristics regarding age, education and deprivation levels and that those engaged in limited internet use are largely from low-SES backgrounds. In their words:

The results indicate that the underlying variables behind limited use of digital systems and media are the more intractable and challenging issues around social inequality, potential deprivation and exit from formal education. The key message for policy-makers is to more fully consider the local and personal social contexts of citizens when designing interventions. This means understanding people’s communities and how to tailor intervention strategies in a way that is meaningful to them and their everyday lives.

The article provides insights valuable to policy-makers attempting to forge inclusion strategies regarding digital systems and media and moves towards an integrative understanding beyond skills and access.

Next we continue the discussion of internet use and skills but change our focus to cyber-safety behaviors in “Determinants of cyber-safety behaviors in a developing economy: The role of socioeconomic inequalities, digital skills and perception of cyber-threats” by Matías Dodel, Daniela Kaiser, and Gustavo Mesch. They tackle the increasingly important topic of cyber-safety and explore determinants of individuals’ cyber-safety behaviors with data from the 2017 WIP+DiSTO Uy survey, a representative sample of Uruguayans. Finding that operational digital skills are the strongest predictor of cyber-safety, they provide support for the “sequentiality of the digital divide hypothesis, as education and age-based disparities affect cyber-safety through their effect on Internet use, which in turn affects digital skills.” In addition:

The study also provides evidence for the generalization of cyber-safety behavior theories -originally formulated based on data from developed economies- to developing ones, by stressing the role of digital skills and perceptions of victimization severity as the main direct antecedents of cyber-safety.

Also of note, they find that “gender and age-based disparities have only an indirect effect on cyber-safety, which is mediated by user beliefs regarding the severity of cyber-victimization.” Thus their article provides insight into the nuanced permutations of cyber-safety and digital inequalities.

From cyber-safety we move to the discussion of Internet skills and political participation in “Digital skills levels and political participation in northeast Anatolia, Turkey” by Duygu Özsoy, Eyyup Akbulut, Sait Sinan Atlgan, and Glenn W. Muschert. Employing performance tests, the study treats data gathered in northeastern Anatolia on political participation, political capital, and exposure to political information. Conceptualizing digital skills in “four sub-types (operational, formal, informational, and strategic) and political participation in three sub-types (online, offline, and civic participation),” the authors control for political capital and social media exposure to political information in order to map out the relationship between digital skills and political participation:

The findings diverge from what has previously been observed elsewhere. While the overall effect that digital skills positively associate with political participation is generally confirmed, this study reports a nuance that may be culturally specific. In previous studies, digital skill has most strongly influenced online participation forms, while in the Turkish context civic participation is more strongly associated with digital skills.

Their findings show the importance of using novel methods and approaches, as well as generating knowledge and insights from understudied populations. In so doing, they remind us of the importance of place and context in studying digital disadvantage from a global perspective.

We continue with “Digital capital and online activities: An empirical analysis of the second level of the digital divide” by Maria Laura Ruiu and Massimo Ragnedda. The authors investigate several significant digital activities and how these activities require varied levels of digital capital. Based on a nationally representative sample from the U.K., the authors make linkages between type and quality of online activities and digital capital and provide evidence underscoring the importance of the second level of the digital divide:

The analysis shows that digital capital, conceived and measured as a specific capital, is entangled with the frequency/intensity of social, economic/financial means, ordinary/daily entertainment, and political activities, but not with learning-related activities. This work contributes to the literature in both empirical and theoretical terms by testing the reliability of digital capital and expanding its use to investigate digital inequalities.

The article’s findings offer insights valuable to policy-makers vis-à-vis job seeking, sociability, savings, familial relationships, and several online activities. In tandem with other papers in this issue, this research heightens our awareness of the need to think in complex causal patterns to best inform policy-making initiatives to tackle digital inequalities.

From our first selection of scholarship on uses and skills, we now turn to the next series of analyses that bridge skills to education and learning. In addition to shifting themes at this halfway point in the special issue, we also turn from problems to potential solutions. Leading the way is “Building online skills in off-line realities: The SolarSPELL Initiative” by Laura Hosman, Coreen Walsh, Martn Pérez Comisso, and Jared Sidman. This article probes potential ways to address learning inequalities with a novel and groundbreaking initiative: the Solar Powered Educational Learning Library:

SolarSPELL is an ultra-portable, rugged, solar-powered, digital library that generates an off-line WiFi hotspot to which any WiFi-capable device can connect and freely surf the library’s expansive, localized content. The innovative, solar-powered technology means that the library can reach those in off-grid, unconnected locations. Yet, what distinguishes the SolarSPELL initiative’s approach to introducing digital technology to schools is that the libraries are matched with locally based trainers who can support the necessary development of Internet-ready skills.

The authors problematize information and digital literacy gaps that they argue must accompany connectivity for the half of the world’s population that remains digitally disenfranchised. Arguing that throwing technology at the problem is a non-starter, their unique model provides digital libraries with locally relevant content to unconnected populations alongside trained teachers and facilitators. Again showing the importance of place and skills, the study reminds us that “meaningful, effective Internet use can bring about empowerment.”

A different tack to addressing educational inequalities is explored in “Digital inequalities: Homework gap and techno-capital in Austin, Texas” by Melissa Santillana, Joe Straubhaar, Alexis Schrubbe, Jaewon Choi, and Sharon Strover. The authors dig deep into the homework gap among children in the U.S. who lack digital resources necessary to complete their out-of-school assignments. Based on data from the city of Austin in Texas and non-profit organizations serving disadvantaged communities, they:

... investigate the role that demographics, technological skills, and attitudes toward technology play in the homework gap. We find that education and income levels are negatively correlated with high levels of homework gap, while age is positively correlated. Moreover, the possession of intermediate levels of techno-capital is inversely correlated to parents’ and caregivers’ perceptions of the homework gap.

For example, they reveal that half of the parents and guardians in their target population reported accessing the Internet in public libraries and computer access centers compared to less than five percent of the general population. In this way, they document how economic, socio-cultural, and geographic factors are interrelated such that “historically underprivileged groups of children are overrepresented in the homework gap space.”

From education, we turn to public policy in the last thematic section of the special issue. We begin with “ICT policies in Latin America: Long-term inequalities and the role of globalized policy-making” by Eduardo Villanueva-Mansilla. Taking a deep dive into policy-making in Latin America and Peru, Villaneuva-Mansilla argues that there is “a structural contradiction between the demands of globalization and the demands of the idealistic side of the Internet expansion debate.” Unpacking many of the tensions between the promises and shortfalls of policy solutions, he writes:

ICT policies have been presented as one of the keys for inclusion in the global economy, especially for countries like Peru where the need for increased connectivity appears crucial, as integration to the global economy through free trade agreements with developed economies became an essential part of economic policy. However, it can be argued that the actual impact of such policies is marginal, and that the actual policy making process is not helping as much as competition at the local telecommunications markets.

Making the claim that, “National autonomy is not possible without relinquishing the benefits of globalization,” he reveals that “Each time we increase the flows of data and the cultural exchanges coming through the Internet, the second, symbolic lock of globalization strengthens. And the international arena is still gridlocked around its failings.” Revealing the globalized nature of policy-making, he makes clear, once again, that context matters in finding solutions.

Our last solo-authored article continues our search for solutions by offering scholars insight into how to turn from the ideals of the ivory tower to the application of those ideals via policy in “Connecting research to policy: Understanding macro and micro policy-makers and their processes” by Lloyd Levine. Employing an autoethnographic approach from over two decades working as a public policy professional, Levine’s work draws on his experience that was gleaned six years as an elected member of the California State Legislature. Filling a number of gaps in the literature, Levine offers an insider’s view of “key concepts and strategies researchers can use to effectively place their research in front of policy-makers with a focus on how to translate research into policy actions.” The work is a goldmine for academics seeking entry into the world of policy:

This article provides a real-time blueprint for connecting academic research to public policy and impacting the policy-making process. This research applies to multiple disciplines as the tools and concepts can be employed by anyone seeking to engage with policy-makers.

From this first-hand experience, as well as a wide knowledge of the field, Levine offers an insightful account of how to maximize the connections between scholarship and policy-making. Levine unpacks the host of sticky wickets that confront scholars including “identifying the correct policy-maker, translating complex research findings into digestible policy recommendations, and then communicating those findings to policy-makers.” In so doing, Levine presents “researchers with tools and a systematic process that can be employed in real-time to convert research and expertise into policy.”

Finally, finalizing the special issue in the spring of 2020, we watched the pandemic unfold and the acceleration of digital inequalities spurred by COVID-19. We capture this moment in time in “Digital inequalities in time of pandemic: COVID-19 exposure risk profiles and new forms of vulnerability” by Laura Robinson, Jeremy Schulz, Hiroshi Ono, Shelia R. Cotten, Noah McClain, Lloyd Levine, Wenhong Chen, Gejun Huang, Antonio A. Casilli, Paola Tubaro, Matas Dodel, Anabel Quan-Haase, Massimo Ragnedda, Maria Laura Ruiu, Deb Aikat, and Aneka Khilnani. They argue that those with digital resources are much better positioned to use those digital tools to mitigate some of the risks associated with the pandemic. They develop the concept of “exposure risk profiles” or CERPs and map out this phenomenon in terms of heterogeneous groups including older adults, students, the incarcerated, teleworkers, and gig/last mile workers. They argue that:

Exposure risk profiles clearly hinge on pre-existing forms of social differentiation such as socioeconomic status, as individuals with more economic resources at their disposal can better insulate themselves from exposure risk ... Alongside socioeconomic status, one of the key forms of social differentiation connected with exposure risk profiles is digital (dis)advantage. All else equal, individuals who can more effectively digitize key parts of their lives enjoy better exposure risk profiles than individuals who cannot digitize these life realms. Thus, in order to fully grasp the sources of individuals’ CERPs, we need to scrutinize the digital inequalities.

As they show, the first global pandemic in the internet era has given birth to ERPs as the newest frontier in digital and risk studies. In closing, we thank you for joining us on this journey and hope that the work here will spark additional scholarship on digital inclusion, arguably one of the most salient problems of our times. End of article

 

About the editors

Laura Robinson is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Santa Clara University. She earned her Ph.D. from UCLA, where she held a Mellon Fellowship in Latin American Studies and received a Bourse d’Accueil at the École Normale Suprieure. Robinson has served as Visiting Assistant Professor at Cornell University and as Chair of CITAMS (2014–2015). Her research has earned awards from CITASA, AOIR, and NCA IICD. In addition to digital inequalities, Robinson’s work explores interaction and identity work, as well as media in Brazil, France, and the U.S.
Direct comments to: laura [at] laurarobinson [dot] org

Jeremy Schulz is Researcher at the UC Berkeley Institute for the Study of Societal Issues and a Fellow at the Cambridge Institute. He has also served as an Affiliate at the UC San Diego Center for Research on Gender in the Professions and a Council Member of the ASA Section on Consumers and Consumption. Previously, he held an NSF funded postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University after earning his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley. He has also done research and published in areas including digital sociology, theory, qualitative research methods, work and family, and consumption.
E-mail: jmschulz [at] berkeley [dot] edu

Noah McClain is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He is currently investigating how the inner workings of proprietary technologies are being deployed to frame the actions of unaware, disempowered humans as criminal; how prisoners improvise with scant material at hand; and the technologies of security and social control. Before joining Illinois Tech he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Bard Prison Initiative, and a visiting scholar at New York University’s Institute for Public Knowledge.
E-mail: mcclain1[at] gmail [dot] com

Timothy Hale, Ph.D., is a medical sociologist in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Previously, he served as Research Fellow at Partners Center for Connected Health and Harvard Medical School. His main research interest is the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on health care and health lifestyles. Prior to joining the Center, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he studied the social and psychological impacts of ICT, focusing primarily on youth and older adults. Hale was elected as a CITASA Council Member (2012–2014). His work has been published in Information, Communication & Society; Computers and Human Behavior; Journal of Health Communication and American Behavioral Scientist.
E-mail: timhale [at] illinois [dot] edu

Heloisa Pait, a Fulbright Alumna, teaches at the São Paulo State University Julio de Mesquita Filho, and investigates the role of new means of communication in democratic life. In her doctoral dissertation, she analyzed how soap opera writers and viewers attempted to make mass communication a meaningful activity. She has written on the reception of international news, on media use by Brazilian youth and on the disruptive role of the Internet in the Brazilian political environment. She has recently redirected her attention to the understanding of the historic roots of Brazilian development and democracy. She writes extensively for the general public on media, culture, and politics; she has recently founded Revista Pasmas, a women’s cultural online magazine.
E-mail: heloisa [dot] pait [at] fulbrightmail [dot] org

Massimo Ragnedda (Ph.D.) is a Senior Lecturer in Mass Communication at Northumbria University, Newcastle, U.K. where he conducts research on the digital divide and social media. He is the co-vice chair of the Digital Divide Working Group (IAMCR) and co-convenor of NINSO (Northumbria Internet and Society Research Group). He has authored 12 books with his publications appearing in numerous peer-reviewed journals, and book chapters in English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Russian texts. His books include: Digital capital: A Bourdieusian perspective on the digital divide (with Maria Laura Ruiu), Emerald Publishing, 2020; Digital inclusion: An international comparative analysis (co-edited with Bruce Mutsvairo), Lexington Books 2018; Theorizing the digital divide (co-edited with G. Muschert), Routledge (2017); The third digital divide: A Weberian approach to digital inequalities (2017), Routledge; The digital divide: The Internet and social inequality in international perspective (co-edited with G. Muschert) (2013), Routledge.
E-mail: massimo [dot] ragnedda [at] northumbria [dot] ac [dot] uk

Professor Joseph D. Straubhaar is the Amon G. Carter, Sr. Centennial Professor of Communications in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He works on the digital divide in both the U.S. and Latin America; on global television, including the shake up of global TV by Netflix; and Latin American TV, including a forthcoming book on Latin American TV audiences in the transition to digital TV. He has published several books including, World television: From global to local (Sage, 2007); Television industries in Latin America (with John Sinclair; British Film Institute, 2013); and, Inequity in the technopolis: Race, class, gender and the digital divide in Austin (co-editor with Jeremiah Spence, Zeynep Tufekci, and Roberta G. Lentz; University of Texas Press, 2012). He was the Director of the Moody College of Communications’ Latino and Latin American Studies Program and was the Director of the Center for Brazilian Studies within the Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies, 2003–2006.
E-mail: jdstraubhaar [at] austin [dot] utexas [dot] edu

Aneka Khilnani is currently a medical student at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, D.C. She completed a M.S. in physiology at Georgetown University, where she focused on preventative medicine and novel renal pharmacologics. She currently serves on the university’s medical admissions committee and internal medicine board. She is also a representative for the American Association of Medical Colleges and actively conducts research in the Dermatology Department at Children’s National Hospital. She has a special interest in telemedicine and digital inclusion. She has also served in numerous editorial positions, co-edited several volumes, and has published in the American Behavioral Scientist and Emerald Studies in Media and Communications.
E-mail: aneka [at] gwu [dot] edu

Natalia Tolentino is pursuing graduate work in education at California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) and earning her Multiple Subject Credential. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in liberal studies, with an emphasis in english, at Azusa Pacific University (APU). Her scholarly achievements have been recognized by membership in the Dean’s List throughout her undergraduate career, as well as being awarded the Filipino-American Association Scholarship, Santa Barbara Scholarship Foundation Scholarship, and Transfer Merit Scholarship. At APU, she was elected into Azusa Pacific University’s English Honor Society, Sigma Tau Delta.
E-mail: nmtolent [at] calpoly [dot] edu

 


Editorial history

Received 6 June 2020; accepted 9 June 2020.


Creative Commons License
This paper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Global perspectives on digital inequalities and solutions to them
by Laura Robinson, Jeremy Schulz, Massimo Ragnedda, Noah McClain, Timothy M. Hale, Heloisa Pait, Joseph D. Straubhaar, and Aneka Khilnani with Natalia Tolentino.
First Monday, Volume 25, Number 7 - 6 July 2020
https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/download/10840/9560
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v25i7.10840