The Digital Basis of New Inequalities: The Logic and Functioning of Digital Institutions

• In Event: Understanding Digital Culture: Useful Tools and Inevitable Elisions

Abstract

On February 5, 2018, the new annual report on the information society from Fundación Telefónica, one of the largest digital multinationals, was released. The president of the Foundation in the presentation of the report preached the benefits of "digitalization" to the point of identifying the so-called "digitization process", with fundamental notions of "development" and "equality". According to this Spanish digital multinational, with a strong presence in Latin America - and with clear interests in Africa - the long-awaited "digitalization process" will bring not only economic well-being, but will inevitably reduce social inequalities. In this context, and based on two recent investigations (Gordo, García, de Rivera and Díaz-Catalán, 2018; Gordo, de Rivera, Díaz-Catalán and García, 2019), this paper argues that far from destroying the old inequalities, digital environments are the source of incipient forms of inequality. To illustrate the functioning of these "digital institutions" and the unequal digital socialization processes associated with them, we present an analysis of the design and operating logic of the main platforms and social networks, the way they enable, and even encourage, certain types of practices while hindering or limiting other possibilities.

Gordo, A., García, A., de Rivera y Díaz-Catalán (2018). Jóvenes en la encrucijada digital: itinerarios de socialización y desigualdad en los entornos digitales. Madrid: Morata.

Gordo, A., de Rivera, J., Díaz-Catalán, C. y García, A. (2019). Factores de socialización digital juvenil. Estudio Delphi. Madrid: Centro Reina Sofía sobre adolescencia y juventud-FAD.

Palabras Clave: affordances / habilitations; inequalities; digital institutions; digitization ; social networks

(With Albert García, Celia Díaz-Catalán, Javier Rivera . Prof. Gordo to present)

Author

• Ángel Gordo, Universidad de Complutense, Madrid