Between digital inclusion and digital democracy

the role of the State and the third sector in poor communities in the Metropolitan Region of Recife

Abstract

The historical accumulation of economic and cultural capitals has been determining unequal patterns of access to the informational revolution. In general, public policies deal with this problem by recurring to concepts that converge to the polar ideas of “digital divide” and “digital inclusion”. From this perspective, the solution to the problem of social inequality is presented as the trajectory that social actors need to undertake from an empty space, from a tabula rasa, to another of prosperity – a clear actualization of the perception of social actors in a subaltern position as lacking beings. More recently, a proposal for stimulating the democratization of ICTs has emerged, that is, not simply intending to fill in a gap, but sustaining the necessity to develop strategies of empowerment. Despite this, there is no agreement on how digital inequality has to be dealt with, whether by investments aiming at social inclusion, or by investments that would enable poor layers of the population to intervene in social life in a broader sense. Based on interviews in 8 institutions, this paper maps out initiatives of digital inclusion and analyzes how these two views are translated in practice.