Digital inclusion (Mar. 8)

We have already established the complex and dynamic nature of the digital divide. It is more than access and it cannot be established as a binary attribute between countries or groups, since there are several dimensions which also create divides within countries and groups. But going further, we must question whether focusing on a digital divide is truly useful, not only due to the simplistic understanding of the divide, but also due to its negative connotation. We might use "digital inclusion" as a more appropriate notion or as the natural progression from diagnosis to action. Specifically, we can look at digital inclusion from the point of view of those that may potentially be excluded from any of the benefits of the knowledge-based network society. Four papers guide us by proposing particular conditions, risks and agendas in terms of senior citizens, gender issues, children and young people, and groups with special needs (people with disabilities).


From the point of view of gender, Caprile and Serrano start by pointing out that debates surrounding the benefits of the knowledge-based society (KBS) have concluded that there is no linear causality between technological development and social equality (or inequality); in other words, there is no guarantee that new ICT will increase or decrease social equality. What this suggests is that the belief in ICT as a source of social progress is perhaps little more than wishful thinking. Since their focus is on gender, they deconstruct the assumptions behind the belief that women will specifically benefit from the KBS. As it goes, the belief is that since women are closing the educational divide and even surpassing men in accessing higher education (in the EU), then they will come out as winners in the KBS. However, statistics show that there are still gaps in terms of payment (men still earn more than women), in terms of ICT usage (due to negative attitudes, a dominant masculine culture and communication styles), in terms of hi-tech employment (women are underrepresented in ICT-related occupations and virtually non-existing in executive positions due to a masculine culture and pre-existing expectations and stereotypes surrounding the ICT profession), and in terms of job requirements (hi-tech occupations undervalue the so-called 'feminine' skills). Furthermore, they highlight the fact that instead of resulting in more work flexibility, the KBS has actually worsened working conditions, including: information overload, workload, time-pressure, increased responsibility at lower levels, stress, and fuzziness in the barriers between work and private activities.This is especially detrimental to women, because while working conditions have worsened, it is also the case that on average there is imbalance between the domestic work done by women as opposed to men - in other words, women end up carrying a dual burden and get paid less for it. Thus, the authors propose a wider notion of inequality that can encompass educational equality together with employment equality, childcare equality and pay equality. This should help tackle the uneven progress in gender equality within the KBS. However, their view is still limited, because as we know it should also be part of an even wider approach that goes beyond employment - for instance, does their study really apply to women in the developing world? Moreover, Caprile and Serrano's account focuses on women vs. men, disregarding other social and cultural factors associated with gender in the KBS; for example, they do not consider the full spectrum of gender (the so-called LGTB community is not mentioned).

Moving on the children and youth, we find yet another assumption with respect to the digital divide: it is believed that since they are the "internet generation" then there will be no significant divide to speak of in their case. However, through a study done in the UK, Livingston and Helsper find that most frequent Internet use is present in boys and older teens, suggesting some form of a divide among children and youth. They also propose using a wider spectrum to uncover potential divides, by moving from access (or use) to different kinds of use. In doing so, they find that children go through four different steps of adoption and use: first; only for information seeking; second, for gaming and e-mail; third, for instant messaging and downloading music; and fourth, a broad use of the internet. They also uncover some aspects that may hinder the use of the internet: experience, frequency of use (use encourages more use), skills, and self-efficacy (confidence). An interesting finding that connects this paper to the last one is that when girls enter their teens, they experience a fall-off in use with respect to boys, suggesting the impact of the masculine dominated culture and pre-existing stereotypes.Despite their effort in considering this often neglected population group, there are some equally important issues surrounding youth in the knowledge-based network society that the authors do not discuss, especially regarding privacy and vulnerability.

Another age group, which constitutes a serious source of exclusion in the knowledge-based society, is made up of senior citizens. Mordinin et al. discuss their place in terms of digital inclusion (they say e-inclusion) from an ethical point of view. For them, e-inclusion is not just about access but rather a necessity for social justice and equity in the knowledge society. As such, they depart from the material access view, which they relate to a market-based ethics according to which e-inclusion should be a matter of contributing to the common wealth as well as receiving from it accordingly; in this view, inclusion is a matter of opening up the market to previously marginalized sectors. This is a limited and harmful view with respect to some senior citizens, because it assumes that only people who can produce or consume are worthy of being included. They follow this by discussing the changing view of old age itself. Though we are all aware that we live in an aging society (not just in the developed world), it is also the case, that age has gained a new meaning: in recent decades life expectancy and quality of life have improved bringing forth a new "middle age" which simply means that mental and physical abilities remain unaltered (though the person may be aging). For example, Jürgen Habermas is 81 and still lecturing strong, but the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer is over 100 and still designing! So rather than artificially dividing population into numerical age groups, the strata should focus on other factors and should explicitly differentiate between the young-old and the oldest-old. For the young-old, e-inclusion goals should be aging well at work and aging well in the community; for the oldest-old, the goal is aging well at home. Ethically, inclusion (of the elderly) is a matter of justice (distributive, procedural, retributive and restorative justice) and of human rights (liberty, claim, participation and privacy rights). But inclusion shouldn't just be a passive attitude towards the potentially excluded, ICT also has a positive role in developing assistive and anti-aging technologies, so long as they guarantee participation and consent from those that should benefit from it.

Finally, Toboso's paper discusses the place of the special needs population (those with disabilities) within the knowledge-based network society. As with senior citizens, disability has also gone through changes in its perception. The so-called medical model of disability considers it as a disease that can be cured in order for the person to be normalized (rehabilitated) back into society. The social model of disability places the focus on society (not on the disabled individual) arguing that the limitations are societal and that its is society that must be 'normalized' in order to cater to the needs of all people. Toboso, however, proposes an alternative: the diversity model of disability, based on Amartya Sen's "capabilities and functionings approach". Sen's contribution, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Economics, shifts the view of human development from a traditional focus on GDP increase, towards what people are actually able to do or be (functionings) and the opportunities they have to freely choose and live the way they wish (capabilities). This is a meaningful shift, because additional resources do not automatically translate into a capability to function (especially, in this context, with regards to people with disability). In terms of ICT the emphasis also shifts from an instrumental view towards one that we already know: ICT as a human action system (ICT modifies human actions and human actions modify ICT). Toboso then proposes developing ICT through "design for all". As in Mordini et al. the idea is that new ICT should be designed through a participatory process and with the aim of making the ICT accessible for everyone. This is no easy task when we consider that persons with disability have different characteristics which sometimes conflict with each other (last week, for example, we looked at a system to help eduction of blind children by providing an auditory environment... this naturally would be of no help for a blind and deaf child). Moreover, we should consider the other user groups mentioned above. Accordingly, design for all should not (cannot) be aimed at designing normalized systems for a standard user (who does not exist), but rather focus on diversity, understanding it not as a barrier to ICT development, but as an opportunity for making it richer and more inclusive so that it can really deliver on its promise of cerating a knolwedge-based network society open for all.

The task this week is then to be inspired by these different population groups and recognize the open, complex, multifaceted and dynamic nature of the digital divide, or rather of digital inclusion, and propose your own version of a "Digital Inclusion Manifesto".