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Little academic and policy attention has addressed the `digital divide' among children and young people. This article analyses findings from a national survey of UK 9—19-year-olds that reveal inequalities by age, gender and socioeconomic status in relation to their quality of access to and use of the internet. Since both the extent of use and the reasons for low- and non-use of the internet vary by age, a different explanation for the digital divide is required for children compared with adults. Looking beyond the idea of a binary divide, we propose instead a continuum of digital inclusion. Gradations in frequency of internet use (from non and low users through to weekly and daily users) are found to map onto a progression in the take-up of online opportunities among young people (from basic through moderate to broad and then all-round users), thus beginning to explain why differences in internet use matter, contributing to inclusion and exclusion. Demographic, use and expertise variables are all shown to play a role in accounting for variations in the breadth and depth of internet use.

The "digital divide" refers to societal-level inequalities of digital access, capabilities, and outcomes. To explore how the digital divide affects customers experiencing vulnerability, service interactions in essential service settings (health care, education, and social services) were empirically investigated and practices service system members might adopt to address vulnerability were identified. This research upframes the pillars of service inclusion framework to define human capabilities that result from service inclusion practices. Three research topics were addressed: how the digital divide affects vulnerability (RQ1), how the digital divide can be addressed through service inclusion practices (RQ2), and how service inclusion practices enable human capabilities for digital inclusion (RQ3). The findings illuminate: (1) how service employees can engage in service inclusion practices to address the digital divide (by letting go of rules and perspectives, sharing control, providing services beyond job scope, and facilitating social connections), and (2) how these service inclusion practices build human capabilities for digital inclusion (by building basic skills and capabilities for meaningful outcomes through role modeling, coaching, customer-to-customer mentoring, and expanding networks). Contributions include conceptual models of service inclusion practices and fostering digital inclusion that specify a new meso level service organization pathway for healing the digital divide.

With a growing range of education, information, government, and community services moving online, internet access is increasingly regarded as an essential service. The benefits of the digital economy cannot be shared equally when some members of the community are still facing real barriers to online participation. Digital inclusion is based on the premise that everyone should be able to make full use of digital technologies – to manage their health and wellbeing, access education and services, organise their finances, and connect with friends, family, and the world beyond. The Australian Digital Inclusion Index (ADII) was first published in 2016, providing the most comprehensive picture of Australia's online participation to date. The ADII measures three vital dimensions of digital inclusion: Access, Affordability, and Digital Ability. It shows how these dimensions change over time, according to people's social and economic circumstances, as well as across geographic locations. Scores are allocated to particular geographic regions and sociodemographic groups, over a five-year period from 2014 to 2018. Higher scores mean greater digital inclusion. This ADII report incorporates data collected up to March 2018.

PART I. Theoretical and empirical insights into vulnerable people's digital inclusion -- 1. Resilience and Digital Inclusion: The Digital Re-making of Vulnerability? -- 2. Digital Inequality Research for Digital Publics: A Call for Digital Public and Policy Social Science -- 3. Multidimensional Digital Exclusion and its Relation to Social Exclusion -- PART II. Ethnic minorities' digital inclusion -- 4. Understanding the Role of Social Media on the Road to Social Inclusion: The Case of Syrian Refugees in Belgium -- 5. Stories of migration: Exploring the Links Between Emotions and Technologies in the Narratives of Venezuelan Refugees in Brazil -- 6. Digital Citizenship for Older Migrants in Australia: The Need for a Comprehensive Policy Framework -- 7. Critical Commentary: Migrant Populations and Intersectional Discrimination: A Technological World's Blind Spot -- Part III. Ageing and digital inclusion -- 8. Digital Exclusion in Later Life: A Narrative Review -- 9. Digital Media Use and Social Inclusion: A Case Study of East York Older Adults -- 10. Enhancing Older Adults' Digital Inclusion Through Social Support: A Qualitative Interview Study -- 11. Critical Commentary: Understanding Digital Inclusion of Older People Through a Human Rights Lens -- PART IV. Digital inclusion of people with disabilities. 12. New Cities, Old Prosthesis - Smart Cities, Smart Phones and Disability -- 13. Disability as Smart Equality: Inclusive Technology in a Digitally Advanced Nation -- 14. Digital Inclusion and Social Networks Among Adults with Disabilities in South Korea -- 15. Differently Included: A Decolonial Perspective on Disability and Digital Media in South Africa -- 16. Critical Commentary: Disability, Technology and Intersectionality: Towards the Transformation of Digital and Physical Worlds -- 17. Editor's Conclusion: Intersectionality and Other Lessons.

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated attention to the public consequences of digital exclusion and to local, state, and federal emergency digital inclusion efforts. In this case study, we examine private sector, municipal government, and nonprofit efforts to close the divide during the pandemic in Philadelphia, which has one of the worst urban connectivity rates in the United States. Drawing on news accounts, policy documents, and interviews with city staff, we assess Philadelphia's digital inclusion efforts during the pandemic. Our findings show that inclusion efforts faced challenging logistics, limited data on the unconnected, funding concerns, and sometimes pushback from Internet service providers (ISPs). The latter were by necessity crucial partners in connectivity efforts but failed to address basic digital access gaps without significant public and governmental pressure, signaling the need for public alternatives. Our analysis foregrounds the disconnect among well-resourced ISPs, connectivity gaps marked by digital redlining in the poorest communities, and political constraints on robust public broadband policy.

The digital divide is a multiple phenomenon that visualizes inequalities in the access, use, and appropriation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) of disadvantaged groups to others. There are currently several digital divides, such as a) the Gender Digital Divide (GDD), b) the generational digital divide, c) the disability digital divide, d) the educational digital divide, and e) the geographic digital divide. Specifically, the Gender Digital Divide exhibits a digital divide between women and men. This issue can be increased or decreased depending on the specific background of each woman. This study aims to provide a current and comprehensive overview of recent studies about the gender digital divide from 2017 to 2021, identifying key topics that require further exploration for a complete understanding of the topic through a systematic mapping. Findings show that recent studies have focused on analyzing the differences and inequalities between women and men regarding access, use, and appropriation of ICTs. For future years, it is needed more research on the subject.

Purpose This paper explores how policy-level stakeholders tackle digital inclusion in the context of UK rural communities. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews were conducted with stakeholders that operate nationally in government departments, government funded organisations and third sector organisations that provided a policy-level perspective on digital inclusion initiative provision across England, Scotland and Wales. Activity theory (AT) was utilised as a theoretical framework, where a variety of factors–tools, rules, community, division of labour and contradictions–were found to have an influence on digital inclusion initiative provision. Findings Digital inclusion initiative provision in UK rural communities is organised through the multi-stakeholder involvement of national organisations, and collaboration with intermediary organisations to provide digital skills training and support. The process is fraught with difficulties and contradictions, limited knowledge sharing; reduced or poor-quality connectivity; lack of funding; lack of local resources; assumptions that organisations will indeed collaborate and assumptions that intermediary organisations have staff with the necessary skills and confidence to provide digital skills training and support within the rural context. Research limitations/implications This study highlights the benefit of using AT as a lens to develop a nuanced understanding of how policy-level stakeholders tackle digital inclusion. Practical implications This study can inform policy decisions on digital inclusion initiative provision suitable for rural communities. Originality/value The contribution of this paper provides new insights into the understanding of how policy-level stakeholders tackle digital inclusion and the provision of digital inclusion initiatives; it builds on the use of AT to help unpick the complexity of digital inclusion initiative provision as a phenomenon; it reveals contradictions in relation to trust, and the need for knowledge sharing ...

PurposeThis paper explores how policy-level stakeholders tackle digital inclusion in the context of UK rural communities.Design/methodology/approachSemi-structured interviews were conducted with stakeholders that operate nationally in government departments, government funded organisations and third sector organisations that provided a policy-level perspective on digital inclusion initiative provision across England, Scotland and Wales. Activity theory (AT) was utilised as a theoretical framework, where a variety of factors–tools, rules, community, division of labour and contradictions–were found to have an influence on digital inclusion initiative provision.FindingsDigital inclusion initiative provision in UK rural communities is organised through the multi-stakeholder involvement of national organisations, and collaboration with intermediary organisations to provide digital skills training and support. The process is fraught with difficulties and contradictions, limited knowledge sharing; reduced or poor-quality connectivity; lack of funding; lack of local resources; assumptions that organisations will indeed collaborate and assumptions that intermediary organisations have staff with the necessary skills and confidence to provide digital skills training and support within the rural context.Research limitations/implicationsThis study highlights the benefit of using AT as a lens to develop a nuanced understanding of how policy-level stakeholders tackle digital inclusion.Practical implicationsThis study can inform policy decisions on digital inclusion initiative provision suitable for rural communities.Originality/valueThe contribution of this paper provides new insights into the understanding of how policy-level stakeholders tackle digital inclusion and the provision of digital inclusion initiatives; it builds on the use of AT to help unpick the complexity of digital inclusion initiative provision as a phenomenon; it reveals contradictions in relation to trust, and the need for knowledge sharing mechanisms to span and align different interpretations of digital inclusion across the policy-level; and reveals an extension of AT demonstrated through the "granularity of the subject" which enables the multi-actor involvement of the stakeholders involved in digital inclusion at policy-level to emerge.

In an increasingly digitalised society, participation becomes dependent on digital skills – the ability to understand and use the everyday Internet technologies that surround us. People who have difficulty acquiring these skills risk being digitally excluded. One such group is the elderly; all research studies show that they are disadvantaged. The project focuses on digital inclusion for elderly citizens, addressing goal 10 of the United Nations global sustainability goals: reduced inequality within and among countries. It brings together researchers, industry and government in a collaborative practice (action research) program designed to increase theoretical knowledge of digital inclusion in Sweden, and to provide useful guidelines and tools for improving societal involvement of elderly citizens. The collaborative practice approach incorporates survey and interview techniques to ensure scientific rigor. A feature of the project is the use of a cross-generational teaching and learning approach – young people (digital natives) interacting with elderly - which has not previously been researched. Our initial results show that the benefits for the elderly include reduced isolation, more autonomy and independence, and better health.

This edited collection explores the role of digital inclusion in the welfare and social inclusion of vulnerable people. With interdisciplinary contributors from six continents, working in diverse fields such as digital media studies, social computing, community informatics and cultural studies, the collection brings together theoretical and applied research evidence on three vulnerable population categories: ethnic minorities, older people and people with disabilities. Each section is accompanied by a critical commentary on the research insights presented, from third sector community and policy experts. The collection explores whether vulnerable populations face similar experiences and challenges in relation to their digital inclusion status, stressing the central presence of intersectionality, and arguing for the inclusion of the age, ethnicity/immigration status and disability aspects of ones identity. At the same time, it argues for multi-directional action that tackles intersectional discrimination in the digital realm on behalf of more than one single population category or group. Challenging popular discourse on the overcoming of digital inequalities in the West, this essential book contends that accounts of non-western contexts do not focus on the parameter of vulnerability or on particular population groups. Panayiota Tsatsou is Associate Professor at the University of Leicester. Her research interests lie in the areas of digital inclusion and Internet studies. Panayiota has published widely on the role of vulnerable and ordinary people as digital media actors.

AbstractPrevious studies generally assume that barriers to internet access are largely passive. That is, exclusion from the Internet is a consequence of poorly resourced individuals, communities, and institutions. This study complicates that assumption by focusing on the active policing and gatekeeping of internet access. Specifically, we estimate the causal effect of free Wi-Fi at chain restaurants on quality-of-life crime reporting by leveraging a staggered difference-in-differences design which compares geo-located crime reports near chain restaurants in Chicago before and after those restaurants introduced free Wi-Fi. We find that free Wi-Fi led to a substantive and significant increase in quality-of-life policing when restaurants were located in wealthier and Whiter areas, but not in other areas. Our findings suggest that internet access itself may be actively policed by social institutions, in our case, national chain restaurants and the police, to protect access for some at the expense of others.

Rapid digitalization and an aging population are leading to an increasingly prominent age-based digital divide among the world's elderly population. This study focuses on China, one of the most rapidly aging and digitalizing countries in the world. Employing a mixed-method approach, this research examines how elderly individuals experience the digital transformation and the associated digital divide. The findings suggest that the elderly interviewees encounter multiple barriers to learning and using digital technologies, which highlights the significant role of social support and networks in facilitating their adaptation to the digital society and lifestyle. Attitudes toward digital engagement and digitalization vary greatly among the elderly, ranging from being optimistic to feeling left behind and having multiple concerns. Our findings further reveal that the Chinese government has implemented numerous digital apps tailored to the demands of the elderly and provided training opportunities to bridge the gray digital divide. This emphasizes the responsiveness and adaptiveness of Chinese authorities in addressing pressing societal issues. However, we identify a gap in digital outreach, as most elderly interviewees have limited awareness of government digital inclusion policies and programs. This article contributes to digital divide research and offers practical implications for countries grappling with the gray digital divide.