Elected as co-vice chair of the Digital Divide Working Group (IAMCR)

I am honoured and happy to be elected as co-vice chair of the Digital Divide Working Group of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). The Digital Divide Working group was established in 1998. The main goal of this working group is to stimulate new theoretical approaches and empirical findings resulted from the research of digital inequality as a multi-dimensional phenomenon influencing various aspects of social life in different countries

The Digital Divide Working Group aims at providing a forum for scholars researching various aspects of digital inequality across the world.

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Digital stratification: Class, status group and parties in the age of the Internet

At the IAMCR 2018 conference (Oregon, 20-24 June 2018), I’ll be chairing several panels and I’ll be presenting a paper titled Digital stratification: Class, status group and parties in the age of the Internet. This paper takes the Weberian social stratification model as a platform to examine digital inequalities, by explaining how social stratification is associated with different digital skills and practices, and tend to produce forms of inequality in the digital realm. This paper attempts to explain how and why the process of social stratification is relevant and useful to the study of digital inequalities. The aim is to develop an approach to digital inequality that acknowledges the process of stratification in a digital-enabled society. Digital inequalities are analysed not as separate forms of inequalities, but in relation to the social inequalities that exist in the offline world. Digital inequalities are embedded in the cultural, social and political context in which they emerge and cannot be disconnected from the social inequalities. Digital inequalities are, as the social inequalities, influenced by the Weberian triadic relationship at the base of the process of social stratification, namely class, social status and power. More specifically, the individuals’ economic position in society (class), the level of prestige individuals have (status group) and their influence on the decision-making process (power) effect the digital divide.