{"id":5423,"date":"2020-07-08T12:35:41","date_gmt":"2020-07-08T12:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/?p=5423"},"modified":"2020-07-08T13:05:17","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T13:05:17","slug":"workshop-digital-inequality-digital-inclusion-digital-humanism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/workshop-digital-inequality-digital-inclusion-digital-humanism\/","title":{"rendered":"Workshop Digital (In)Equality, Digital Inclusion, Digital Humanism by Jo Dixon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

posted on behalf of Jo Dixon<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an early start for the \u2018Digital (In)Equality, Digital Inclusion and Digital Humanism (Online 07\/07\/2020) workshop, at least for those of us in the UK; with contributors from as far afield as India and Malaysia, it\u2019s not so early in the day for everyone.<\/p>\n

Just before 8am UK time, I let WebSci2020 into my kitchen. I should have prepared myself to replicate the \u2018real life\u2019 conference experience better with coffee and pastries, but I haven\u2019t even allowed myself time to throw some muesli into a bowl before Anna Bon and Hans Akkermans are introducing the workshop. They promise \u2018diversity in geography and themes\u2019 and that is absolutely what we are treated to over the course of the morning (unfortunately I couldn\u2019t stay to the end of the afternoon session).<\/p>\n

Kicking off Session A, Leen Zevenbergen sets the mood with a thought-provoking keynote about the need for sustainable business models and the role of technology in achieving sustainability. There\u2019s an optimism in his words that sets a positive tone for the workshop: he suggests around 10% of the world\u2019s population consists of \u2018cultural creatives\u2019 who want to build a sustainable world, and that we\u2019ve almost reached a tipping point that will move the whole planet. He fields questions that force him to concede that after Covid-19, some companies, driven by shareholder demands, will just want to get back to the old normal and claw back some lost profits. But, optimistic or pessimistic, things will change, Zevenbergen insists: \u201cAs we say in the Netherlands \u2018When a ship hits the wall, it stops\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

The presentations that follow take us to different parts of the globe to consider various aspects of the theme. I\u2019m dipping in and out a bit and am unfortunately unable to follow all the presentations in full. One of the (dis?)advantages of an online conference for me is that I\u2019m at home with my kids who, one by one, are waking up and invading my headspace, if not my workspace. They\u2019ve been briefed to try not to bother me this morning, and they\u2019re actually being very good, but being the only parent on the scene today, I can\u2019t resist removing my headset occasionally to check what they\u2019re up to.\u00a0 As a web scientist, I would love to be in a physical conference space, able to immerse myself more fully knowing the kids are safely looked after elsewhere, but I am not a full-time web scientist, and as a parent I\u2019m also glad to be able to attend the conference part-time without having to make arrangements for childcare.<\/p>\n

Chu Hiang Goh\u2019s talk is about shaping an emoji system such that it supports the sustainability of the local cultural values of a people whose identity might otherwise be compromised by globalised communications and universal emoji design.<\/p>\n

Next Ms Shalini presents a generally optimistic view of the potential of cutting edge technologies including AI for increasing equity and ensuring sustainability in India\u2019s education system.<\/p>\n

Anna Bon closes Session A with a presentation about evaluating the economic sustainability of digital development projects that \u2018often don\u2019t survive the (donor-funded) pilot period\u2019.<\/p>\n

In the Session B keynote, Richard Heeks proposes extending the now well-established model of the digital divide with the addition of \u2018adverse digital incorporation\u2019 in recognition of the fact that digital inequality is not just about unequal access to the web, but also unequal outcomes: when some people access the digital world they still find themselves disadvantaged.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gertjan van Stam then presents a Zimbabwean view of data sovereignty, exposing colonial impositions and highlighting what is needed to counter adverse digital incorporation in this context.<\/p>\n

From closer to home, Amelia Morris reports on an ethnographic investigation into the digitisation of the welfare benefits system in the UK. Personally I\u2019m especially pleased to see ethnography in a web science conference. It\u2019s also an interesting reminder that although we need to promote ideas from the developing world in web science, issues around digital inequality and digital justice are still highly relevant to developed countries too. The designers of the online Universal Credit system that Morris describes could learn a lot from ICT4D approaches, but as Morris suggests with more than a hint of cynicism, perhaps there was never the political will or intention for the system to be accessible.<\/p>\n

In another home-grown paper, but one with a more international perspective, EA Draffan is interested in increasing web accessibility for people with low literacy by using symbols. She points out that low literacy is a problem not only in the developing world, but in the developed world too as increasing numbers of elderly people face mild cognitive impairment that can impair comprehension. Draffan discusses the challenges of using AI techniques to automatically map symbols to concepts and the complexities of attempting text to symbol translation in a wide range of languages and cultural settings.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I have to leave shortly after Francis Dittoh starts to talk about his research in Ghana. Clicking the \u2018Leave\u2019 button allows me to exit, I assume, without the speaker being aware of my rudeness, so I feel I can get away with popping in and out of sessions today more freely than I would at a face-to-face conference where I would usually try to avoid sneaking out of a workshop early \u2013 one of the other (dis?)advantages of an online conference.<\/p>\n

However, I am able to dip back in after lunch and catch Mirjam de Bruijn\u2019s Session C keynote. For the second time today we see how much depth and insight ethnographic research can bring to web science.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

De Bruijn sounds almost apologetic about her methodological approach, saying \u2018probably you\u2019ll find my work a bit anecdotal\u2019, but personally I find it the perfect complement to more technical and quantitative web science work, rich in the sort of detail about human feelings, attitudes and behaviour that some other approaches cannot provide.\u00a0 WebSci20 is, after all, all about making the web more human-centric and studying these strange creatures close-up gives us a more complete picture than their digital footprint alone can provide.<\/p>\n

My kids need a more substantial break from Tiktok and Netflix now, so I\u2019m now going to take off my part-time PhD hat and resume part-time parent duties, but I\u2019m looking forward to being able to dip in and out of WebSci20 for the rest of the week in a similar way.<\/p>\n

J.M. Dixon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

posted on behalf of Jo Dixon It\u2019s an early start for the \u2018Digital (In)Equality, Digital Inclusion and Digital Humanism (Online 07\/07\/2020) workshop, at least for those of us in the UK; with contributors from as far afield as India and Malaysia, it\u2019s not so early in the day for everyone. Just before 8am UK time, I let WebSci2020 into my …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99807,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","column","threecol"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p44UOk-1pt","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99807"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5423"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5432,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5423\/revisions\/5432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/wsi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}