Ragnedda M., and Gladkova A. (eds) Digital Inequalities in the Global South, Palgrave/IAMCR series.
This book discusses how digital inequalities today may lead to other types of inequalities in the Global South. Contributions to this collection move past discussing an access problem – a binary division between ‘haves and have-nots’ – to analyse complex inequalities in the internet use, benefits, and opportunities of people in the Global South region. Using specific case studies, this book underlines how communities in the Global South are now attempting to participate in the information age despite high costs, a lack of infrastructure, and more barriers to entry. Contributions discuss the recent changes in the Global South. These changes include greater technological availability, the spread of digital literacy programs and computer courses, and the overall growth in engagement of people from different backgrounds, ethnicities, and languages in digital environments. This book outlines and evaluates the role of state and public institutions in facilitating these changes and consequently bridging the digital divide.
Reviews
“This collection of essays by Anna Gladkova and Massimo Ragnedda is a strong contribution to our understanding about the social and cultural implications of the globalisation of digital economy. The editors have managed to present an impressive array of articles that cover different aspects of digital inequalities in the Global South. The book offers much unique information on and analytical insights into countries that are rarely, if ever, discussed in the connection to digital economy, such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, Jamaica, and others. The book is highly recommended to anybody interested in the overall social and cultural dimensions and consequences of digital economy. It is also an excellent introduction to studies of any kind of the Global South, as it offers a first-hand overview of the digital upheaval of these parts of the world.”
(Hannu Nieminen, University of Helsinki, Finland)
“This book fills not just one but several empty spaces: usually media scholars look just at Western, rich world; this text is focused on Global South. Usually Digital Divide is referred to differences between North and South; this text looks into the often neglected problems within Southern countries. A must for those who wants to have an original view on the consequences of the digital revolution.”
(Paolo Mancini, University of Perugia, Italy)
“Driven by a deep concern about digital injustice, and its destructive articulation with other forms of social and political injustice, Digital Inequalities in the Global South is a global and still detailed intersectional analysis of absence, whether it concerns ICTs, skills, power, sustainability, well-being, benevolence, or democracy. The book is an appreciated disruption of the digital fantasy of technologically-generated social well-being, but simultaneously defends ICTs as conditions of possibility for the exercise of information and communication rights.”
(Nico Carpentier, Charles University, Czechia, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, and Uppsala University, Sweden)
Massimo Ragnedda 