Download full text
(external source)
Citation Suggestion
Please use the following Persistent Identifier (PID) to cite this document:
https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v11i3.6623
Exports for your reference manager
The Power of Emotions: The Ethics of Care in the Digital Inclusion Processes of Marginalized Communities
[journal article]
Abstract Digital inclusion research has focused on the conditions, practices, and activities necessary to ensure that all individuals and communities, including the most marginalized populations, can access and use digital technologies. The complexities of Internet appropriation that enable digital inclusion... view more
Digital inclusion research has focused on the conditions, practices, and activities necessary to ensure that all individuals and communities, including the most marginalized populations, can access and use digital technologies. The complexities of Internet appropriation that enable digital inclusion have traditionally been approached from a macro‐level perspective that focuses on access infrastructure policies. Although motivations and social, economic, and cultural capital have been part of the analysis at the individual level, there are still questions about how this process unfolds at the community level. Specifically, little is known about how dynamics and interactions among marginalized groups with weaker online skills and limited Internet access influence technological appropriation. The ethics of care offers complementary insights into this phenomenon, allowing scholars to look at how emotions can trigger actions that lead to the technological involvement of those on the digital periphery. Drawing on 71 in‐depth interviews conducted in person with Internet users in 16 rural and urban communities in Chile, we discuss how care sets the stage for organizing, helping, and teaching others. Our results show that emotions such as empathy, powerlessness, and frustration were vital to giving and receiving forms of care that facilitate digital activities. The findings also suggest that digital assistance is more prevalent in tightly‐knit marginalized communities with more trusting communication patterns.... view less
Keywords
Internet; inclusion; municipality; rural area; urban population; emotion; Chile; digital divide; social inequality
Classification
Sociology of Science, Sociology of Technology, Research on Science and Technology
Social Problems
Free Keywords
digital inclusion; ethics of care; rural communities; urban communities
Document language
English
Publication Year
2023
Page/Pages
p. 275-285
Journal
Social Inclusion, 11 (2023) 3
Issue topic
Expanding the Boundaries of Digital Inclusion: Perspectives From Network Peripheries and Non-Adopters
ISSN
2183-2803
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed