Conceptualising the digital divide

The term “digital divide” emerged in the 1990s to define inequalities in access to the Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), framing it as a matter of having or not having access to ICTs (Compaine 2001). The firsts empirical researches have shown how some specific socio-demographic variables, such as employment status, income, education level, geographic location, ethnicity, age, gender and family structure, influenced the access to the ICTs, creating a digital gap or divide among citizens (domestic digital divide) or countries (global digital divide). Such inequalities have widened during the years, despite the fact that the World Summit on the Information Society, held in Geneva (2003) and then in Tunis (2005) has stressed the idea that no one should be left out from the benefits offered by the information society. The importance of the Internet as a pre-requisite for economic and social development, has been further stressed by the United Nations in 2015 when the Internet has been included among its goals for resolving the most persistent social and economic challenges of our time (UN, 2015: 15). Indeed, in a digital enabled society, part of the human activities depends on how we access, generate and process information. It is then worth asking how the phenomenon of digital divide and digital inequalities has been approached and analysed by both scholars and policy makers and how such approach has changed over the years. Hence, the aim of this chapter is to discuss the change of perspectives in analysing and attempting to bridge the digital divide, and reconceptualise this concept by offering a nuanced theoretical approach to analyses the rise and persistence of digital inequalities

Comprehending the Digital Disparities in Africa

The digital divide has a significant impact on the ways in which information across Africa is developed, shared, and perceived. This opening chapter seeks to analyse the problems and opportunities associated with the ubiquitous digital revolution, providing a cross-disciplinary examination of digital disparities inhibiting social, political, and economic progress across Africa. It also attempts to conceptualise the digital divide in an African setting. It will introduce some of the main concepts associated with the digital divide and analyse them from an African perspective. The chapter also provides specific examples of how various countries in Africa are dealing with problems associated with the digital exclusion of their citizens. This contribution also provides the justification, aims, and objectives of the book before ending with chapter summaries of the collection

Book review: <i>Schools under surveillance: cultures of control in public education</i> by Monahan Torin and Rodolfo D. Torres

Monahan Torin and Rodolfo D. Torres' (eds.) Schools under surveillance: cultures of control in public education. New Brunswick, New Jersey, London: Rutgers University Press. 264 pp. $24.95 (US), Paperback. ISBN: 978-0-8135-4680-3

La violencia simbólica de la música en la publicidad destinada a la infancia

Este artículo presenta una investigación, llevada a cabo sobre una muestra de 282 estudiantes italianos, de edades comprendidas entre los 8 y los 12 años, dirigida a comprobar el conocimiento real que los niños tienen del mudo publicitario y su relación con la televisión. La música en particular, en el centro de esta investigación, se muestra como un elemento de importancia fundamental para la publicidad televisiva, porque consigue que se instaure un proceso de fascinación y seducción que convierte el mundo publicitario en un lugar mágico y deseable. La música es el primer elemento que captura la atención de los más pequeños y se infiltra en los recovecos de la memoria. Los datos obtenidos demuestran que los estudiantes entienden que la música representa para ellos el elemento de mayor interés, confirman que cantan habitualmente los temas que acompañan a los spots, y sueñan con las atmósferas y los mundos propuestos por la publicidad.This article presents a study of 8 to 12 year-old Italian students (n=282) to test their knowledge about advertising and their interaction with TV. The thesis that gives a strong power of attraction, seduction, persuasion to advertising is supported by the results of this research. The main purpose of this article is to test the importance of the music in the seduction process of advertising. Music is often the first element that captures children's attention and, even if they do not pay much attention to the visual aspects of an advertisement, the music is able to penetrate the psyche. The research shows that music is the element of main attraction for the young students and that they often sing the jingle of an ad, becoming at the same time the unwitting mechanism for diffusion of the message and victims of the symbolic violence of advertising

El consumismo inducido: reflexiones sobre el consumo postmoderno

El consumismo ha llegado acompañado de un aumento del tiempo libre que los medios de comunicación de masas y la industria cultural han intentado, en muchas ocasiones con éxito, convertir en tiempo de consumo. La industria cultural organiza el tiempo libre y alimenta el deseo, intentando diseñar el entretenimiento y sus horarios, los deseos y sus aspiraciones, intentando imponer las reglas del «tiempo libre» y haciéndonos interiorizar los deseos y preceptos consumistas. La llegada de lo que el historiador inglés Hobsbawn llamó la «sociedad de la opulencia» del siglo XX ha generado una orientación consumista que ha revolucionado la postura de la época anterior frente a la existencia. El consumismo alimenta una concepción distinta de la existencia, mucho más dócil y ligera, y de cuyo núcleo se han eliminado la dureza y la dificultad, en la que los bienes no se evalúan en base a su «valor de cambio», sino a su «valor de consumo».The consumerism has been accompanied to an increase of the spare time, that the mass media and the culture industry has tried, often successfully, to reduce to «time of consumption». The culture industry organizes the leisure, and feeds the desires, trying to delineate the amusement and its timetables, desires and its aspirations, trying to impose the rules of the «spare time» trying to impose and to interiorize the consumerism’s desires. The advent of that the English historian Hobsbawm called the «opulent society» in the lasts decades of century XX, has generated a consumerism guideline that revolutionizes the previous attitude towards the existence. The consumerism nourishes a various conception of the existence, much more docile and light, and from whose nucleus has been removed the hardness and the difficulty and, above all, where the assets is not estimated on their «value of exchange», but on their «value of consumption»

Social control and surveillance in the society of consumers

The new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) introduced a highly automated and much cheaper systematic observation of personal data. ICTs advance the intensification and the extension of surveillance, such that an expanding quantity of data can now be collected, tabulated and cross-referenced more rapidly and more accurately than old paper files. This process contributes to the building a "new electronic cage" constraining the individual, on the basis of his e-profile and data-matching. Especially two agents of surveillance are interested in collecting and using such data: government authorities and private corporations. Massive stores of personal data held on ordinary people are now vital to both public services and private business purposes. The new electronic cage is more all-encompassing and complete, being able to produce a complete profile of citizens and consumers in real time. Both public and private information agencies rely on one another for creating and modelling the profiles of good citizens/consumers who, by definition, are well integrated into social life, exhibiting predictable behaviour that conforms to the general needs of contemporary consumer/ oriented social relations. The underlying assumption under girding the public/private exchange of personal data, the idea is that a good consumer is also a good citizen, and vice versa

Exploring Digital Inequalities in Russia: an interregional comparative analysis

Purpose – This paper contributes to the literature by proposing an analysis of digital inequalities in Russia that focuses on two aspects hitherto under explored: the interregionality (by comparing and contrasting eight federal districts) and the multidimensionality of digital inequalities (by taking into account the three levels of digital divide). Therefore, the aim is to address the phenomenon of digital divide in Russia by discussing the three levels of the digital divide (access / skills / benefits) in a comparative and interregional perspective. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses secondary data for its analysis, including both national (e.g. the total number of daily Internet users in Russia) and more regionalized data (related to particular federal districts of Russia). The choice of data sources was determined by an attempt to provide a detailed and multifaceted coverage of all three levels of the digital divide in Russia, which is not limited to the access problem only. For this purpose, we are using and re-elaborating various reports about the development of the Internet and ICTs in Russia prepared by national and international organizations to cover the first level of the digital divide. To shed light upon the second and third levels of the digital divide, we discuss digital literacy report (2018), the report on Internet openness index of Russian regions (2017) and the report on the digital life index of the Russian regions (2016). Finally, in the attempt to map out the key directions of the state policy aimed at decreasing digital inequality in Russia, on both federal and regional levels, we analyze the most important regional and national policy measures to foster digitalization such as the digital Russia program, the digital government program and the program of eliminating digital inequality in Russia. Findings – We consider this study to be both a first exploration and a baseline of the three level digital divides in Russia. The paper shows how the level of socioeconomic development of the federal districts, as well as a number of objective factors (distance/isolation, urbanization level, availability of infrastructure and costs for building new infrastructure, etc.) have impact upon digitalization of the regions. As a result, several federal districts of Russia (Central, Northwestern, and, in a number of cases, Ural and Volga federal districts) more often than others take leading positions in rankings, in terms of degree of Internet penetration, audience numbers, use of e-services, etc. This correlation, however, is not universal as we will show, and some regions lacking behind in terms of access can be booming in terms of digital literacy or other factors, like it happened with the Far Eastern Federal district for example. All in all, our research showed that digital inequality in Russia is still on place and will require more time for complete elimination, even though current state and public initiatives are being actively developed. Originality/value – This paper will bring to light meaningful insights into the three levels of digital divides in Russia. Based on a multilevel (three levels of digital divide) and multi-sectional approach (the interplay of different types of inequalities), this paper contributed to overall better understanding of the digital inequalities phenomenon in Russia. It also allowed for a comparative interregional perspective, which has been missing in most papers on digital inequalities in Russia so far

UK General Election 2015: dealing with austerity

This article investigates the nature of the conversation around austerity on Twitter during the 2015 general election in the UK. Specifically, it explores the kinds of messages referring to austerity, as well as the kinds of accounts involved (whether they referred to a private or public role on Twitter and in society) and their affiliation to politically or non-politically oriented organizations/bodies. The search on Twitter concerning the austerity topic (for the 39-day time period from 3 March to 8 May 2015) resulted in 16,015 tweets, which generally referred to austerity, and 11,146 tweets, which contained at least one relevant hashtag. While austerity was rarely mentioned by mainstream media accounts in the Twittersphere, this topic was widely discussed during the election campaign by private users. This could be seen as a limitation of agenda setting, since there is no correlation between the agenda set by the media on Twitter and the public discussion about it. However, we found a relationship between the offline mainstream media agenda and the discussion led by private users on Twitter, thus confirming, to some extent, the validity of intra-agenda setting. In fact, offline media events (talk shows, news articles and question times) seemed to trigger peaks in tweet-based discussions or mentions about austerity, showing that the agenda set by the offline media influenced the discussion in the Twittersphere. Finally, we found that, while austerity has clear implications for citizens’ daily life, it seems to be more of an “elitist” topic, mainly addressed by those who are already politically oriented and well informed on the topic

Exclusão digital: como é estar do lado errado da divisão digital = Digital exclusion: how it feels to be on the wrong side of the digital divide

O desenvolvimento da sociedade da informação reforçou a existência de obstáculos que dificultam o acesso e o uso apropriado das tecnologias por certos grupos, levando a novas formas de exclusão no mercado de trabalho, nas instituições governamentais, no lazer, e nas atividades educativas. Contudo, reduzir o hiato entre aqueles que estão conectados e aqueles que não estão tendo acesso físico mais barato e mais rápido à internet não resulta automaticamente numa eliminação da distância colocada pelas desigualdades digitais. É um erro assumir um posicionamento tecnologicamente determinista, que vê o acesso à tecnologia como solução para os problemas sociais, incluindo problemas de desigualdade social, democracia, liberdade, interação social e um senso de comunidade. Na verdade, muitas dimensões e padrões existentes podem gerar e reforçar desigualdades, aumentando ainda mais as distâncias entre cidadãos/usuários. O termo “hiato digital”, muitas vezes usado como expressão binária, pode não ser adequado porque sugere um hiato unidimensional, baseado principalmente no fator econômico – possuir tecnologia –, ao passo em que há hiatos em perspectivas múltiplas, que vão além do simples acesso ou da obtenção dos recursos. Essas dimensões criam desigualdades digitais que, se não forem retratadas, produzem e reforçam as desigualdades sociais. Os conceitos de estratificação social e digital estão intimamente interligados. The development of the information society has highlighted the existence of obstacles preventing certain social groups from accessing and properly using technologies, leading to new forms of exclusion from the job market, governmental institutions, leisure and academic activities. However, reducing the gap between those who connect and those who do not by offering cheaper and faster physical access does not automatically translate into closing the gap in terms of digital inequalities. The technological determinist position, which sees access to technology as being able to solve social problems, including problems of social inequality, democracy, freedom, social relationships and sense of community, is misleading. In fact, several dimensions and patterns can generate and reinforce inequalities, further increasing the distances between citizens/users. The term “digital divide”, often used as a binary expression, is confusing, because it suggests a one-dimensional gap, mainly based on the economic factor – possession of technologies –, while there are gaps in multiple dimensions that go beyond the simple access to or possession of resources. These dimensions create digital inequalities that, if not mirrored, can produce and reinforce social inequalities. The concepts of social and digital stratification are intimately intertwined