Digital inequalities #infolit @InfoSchoolSheff

Simeon Yates from Liverpool University gave a talk in the Information School today, on digital inequalities and his research in this area over the years (the photo of the talk is taken with some arty setting on my iPad). Yates referred to Bourdieu's ideas as providing a useful way of looking at these issues (notably the ideas of cultural, economic and social capital). He was no longer keen on the concept of "digital capital". In his talk he presented some of the analysis he and his colleagues have done, using some of their own research data, but also using open data e.g. from Ofcom, Pew Research Center. One of the key points was the correlation between lower class / economic status and limited or no use of the internet. Another interesting point was how digital skills don't necessarily transfer from the everyday context to the work context (e.g. because everyday use is very focused on a few applications on a smartphone - this issue also came out of Ofcom research that I blogged a while back).
His academia.edu page is here https://liverpool.academia.edu/SYates and a current project is Me and My Big Data – Developing Citizens’ Data Literacies https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/humanities-and-social-sciences/research/research-themes/centre-for-digital-humanities/projects/big-data/