Submission of abstracts: July 15th, 2023
Submission of full papers: Jan. 15-31, 2024
Issue publication: July/September 2024
This theme issue addresses citizens’ everyday experiences of digital inclusion and exclusion, focusing on the practices and tactics by which citizens deal with the increasing digitalization of their daily lives. Governments, employers, schools and other institutions increasingly expect people to participate digitally. But even in digitally advanced countries, large groups of citizens lack critical and functional digital skills. This theme issue explicitly takes a user-centered approach to understanding the consequences of digital inclusion and exclusion from the perspective of citizens themselves.
In addition to conceptual frameworks for digital literacy and theoretical explorations of the various “new” literacies required for participation in digital societies, we seek to understand the social, civic and political consequences of digital inclusion and/or exclusion in people’s everyday lives. How do citizens develop and translate digital literacies into media practices throughout their lives? How do citizens navigate gaps in digital literacies within the various realms of everyday life? And what are the implications of digital exclusion for the everyday practice of digital citizenship?
This theme issue encourages an in-depth understanding of how citizens of different socioeconomic backgrounds, ages and education levels develop digital literacy over their lifetimes and under what circumstances it becomes valuable for their participation and inclusion. Such a user-centered approach contributes to more knowledge about how digital literacy is developed from an early age, about the different social contexts in which these processes take place, and how this knowledge is appropriated, shaped and used in informal and formal everyday practices and environments. Moreover, by focusing on the development of digital literacy as a situated social practice, an understanding is gained of the social contexts in which people develop digital literacy, how they construct and integrate social norms around technologies, and how digital literacy and (digital) citizenship are connected.
More information: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/pages/view/nextissues#DigitalInExclusion
