Its Culture: Reframing Digital Inclusion as a Cultural Policy Issue

• In Event: Interventions in the Digital Divide: Challenges and Opportunities for Communication Research, Policy, and Practice

Abstract

Policy debate around digital inclusion has often focused on two issues – access and skills. Though key issues, this paper contends that these foci derive from the construction of digital inclusion as a “technical” and “educational” problem, and the need to ensure instrumental outcomes from digital media use. The paper takes its lead from cultural policy research (e.g., Belfiore, 2002; 2009; 2012) examining the discourse of UK digital inclusion policy and drawing on the outcomes of a UK national Digital Policy workshop. It argues for the reframing of contemporary digital inclusion policy as an issue of cultural policy. In particular that the material consequences of the “uses of digital” (cf. Hoggart, 1957) – both inequities and benefits experienced in communities – need to be understood and explored. Digital inequalities are intrinsic to socio-cultural inequalities and must be addressed as such if interventions through policy and practice are to succeed in bridging digital divides.


Belfiore, E. (2002). Art as a means of alleviating social exclusion: Does it really work? A critique of instrumental cultural policies and social impact studies in the UK. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 8(1), pp. 91-106.
Belfiore, E. (2009). On bullshit in cultural policy practice and research: Notes from the British case. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 15(3), pp. 343-359.
Belfiore, E. (2012). “Defensive instrumentalism” and the legacy of New Labour's cultural policies. Cultural Trends, 21(2), pp. 103-111.
Hoggart, R. (1957). The Uses of Literacy. Transaction Publishers.

Author

• Simeon John Yates, U of Liverpool