There are many reports about the digital divideand many discrepant interpretations of what thereports indicate. This pattern of competinganalyses, often in relation to identical datasets, has endured for a good part of the lastdecade. It is argued here that a major problemwith much of the digital divide research is afailure to include ethical concerns as anexplicit part of analyzing and interpretingdigital divide gaps. If researchers includemore recognition of ethics with their findingsabout divide gaps, it is likely that they willproduce better (...) research and findings as well asmore defensible linkages between study reportsand policy deliberations. (shrink)

A recent report from the UN makes the case for “global data literacy” in order to realise the opportunities afforded by the “data revolution”. Here and in many other contexts, data literacy is characterised in terms of a combination of numerical, statistical and technical capacities. In this article, we argue for an expansion of the concept to include not just competencies in reading and working with datasets but also the ability to account for, intervene around and participate in the wider (...) socio-technical infrastructures through which data is created, stored and analysed – which we call “data infrastructure literacy”. We illustrate this notion with examples of “inventive data practice” from previous and ongoing research on open data, online platforms, data journalism and data activism. Drawing on these perspectives, we argue that data literacy initiatives might cultivate sensibilities not only for data science but also for data sociology, data politics as well as wider public engagement with digital data infrastructures. The proposed notion of data infrastructure literacy is intended to make space for collective inquiry, experimentation, imagination and intervention around data in educational programmes and beyond, including how data infrastructures can be challenged, contested, reshaped and repurposed to align with interests and publics other than those originally intended. (shrink)

Despite a high and growing global average income, billions of human beings are still condemned to lifelong severe poverty with all its attendant evils of low life expectancy, social exclusion, ill health, illiteracy, dependency, and effective enslavement. We citizens of the rich countries are conditioned to think of this problem as an occasion for assistance. Thanks in part to the rationalizations dispensed by our economists, most of us do not realize how deeply we are implicated, through the new global economic (...) order our states have imposed, in this ongoing catastrophe. My sketch of how we are so implicated follows the argument of my book, World Poverty and Human Rights, but takes the form of a response to the books critics. (shrink)

In Cognitive Integration: Attacking The Bounds of Cognition Richard Menary argues that the real pay-off from extended-mind-style arguments is not a new form of externalism in the philosophy of mind, but a view in which the 'internal' and 'external' aspects of cognition are integrated into a whole. Menary argues that the manipulation of external vehicles constitutes cognitive processes and that cognition is hybrid: internal and external processes and vehicles complement one another in the completion of cognitive tasks. However, we cannot (...) make good on these claims without understanding the cognitive norms by which we manipulate bodily external vehicles of cognition. -/- Shaun Gallagher: “Menary sets out some extremely welcome clarifications that help to integrate the models of embodied and extended cognition. He not only provides convincing responses to all of the main objections that have been made against these approaches, he also puts flesh on the integrated model by incorporating concepts such as epistemic action, by expanding the discussion to include a Peircean view of representation, by demonstrating its evolutionary roots, and by exploring its implications for language and cognition. This is one of those books that takes us forward a number of giant steps. Menary makes it comprehensive and comprehensible.” . (shrink)

As a full expression of techne, the information society has already posed fundamental ethical problems, whose complexity and global dimensions are rapidlyevolving. What is the best strategy to construct an information society that is ethically sound? This is the question I discuss in this paper. The task is to formulate aninformation ethics that can treat the world of data, information, knowledge and communication as a new environment, the infosphere. This information ethics must be able to address and solve the ethical (...) challenges arising in the new environment on the basis of the fundamental principles of respect for information, its conservation and valorisation. It must be an ecological ethics for the information environment. (shrink)

PurposeDigital and social inclusion are becoming more talked about as approaches to what has been discussed as the digital divide. But what is digital or social inclusion? The purpose of this paper is to explore the notion of social exclusion as a variety of, sometimes conflicting, social programmes which embody ideas of what society should be. Becoming more aware of this variety of approach can give insights into programmes addressing the digital divide and the political, cultural and social aspects of (...) policies of social inclusion.Design/methodology/approachThe paper analyses the notion of social inclusion as a variety of social policies to address social exclusion and develop the nation state. It uses an example of a telecentre in Jordan's knowledge station programme to illustrate and extend this analysis.FindingsThe analysis and discussion of the KS initiative shows how different notions of social and digital inclusion are important features of strengthening the Jordanian state and are useful in analysing the relative success of this programme.Originality/valueThe paper argues that analyses of digital divides and digital exclusion could be strengthened by a closer understanding of policies of social inclusion. In this way it is possible to move from technological connection as a measure of a digital divide to a more thorough understanding using social inclusion policy which illuminates social, political and cultural aspects of technological change. (shrink)

The ageing society poses significant challenges to Europe’s economy and society. In coming to grips with these issues, we must be aware of their ethical dimensions. Values are the heart of the European Union, as Article 1a of the Lisbon Treaty makes clear: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity…”. The notion of Europe as a community of values has various important implications, including the development of inclusion policies. A special case of exclusion concerns the (...) gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it, the “digital divide”, which in Europe is chiefly age-related. Policies to overcome the digital divide and, more generally speaking, e-inclusion policies addressing the ageing population raise some ethical problems. Among younger senior citizens, say those between 65 and 80 years old, the main issues are likely to be universal access to ICT and e-participation. Among the older senior citizens, say those more than 80 years old, the main issues are mental and physical deterioration and assistive technology. An approach geared towards the protection of human rights could match the different needs of senior citizens and provide concrete guidance to evaluate information technologies for them. (shrink)

The ethical and political dilemmas raised byInformation and Communication Technology (ICT)have only just begun to be understood. Theimpact of centralised data collection, masscommunication technologies or the centrality ofcomputer technology as a means of accessingimportant social institutions, all poseimportant ethical and political questions. As away of capturing some of these effects I willcharacterise them in terms of the type of powerand, more particularly, the ‘Power-over’ peoplethat they exercise. My choice of thisparticular nomenclature is that it allows us todescribe, firstly, how specific (...) technologiesoperate and second, exactly what sorts ofconstraints they impose on people. The reasonfor this focus has to do with a further aim ofthe essay, which is to intervene in aparticular type of debate that is often hadaround the appropriate use and scope oftheories of power that are employed in thinkingabout ICT, especially those theories associatedwith the work of Michel Foucault. There isconsiderable use of his work in computerethics, but my claim will be that despite theproductive uses of his work in the areas ofsurveillance, for instance, it does not exhaustthe larger potential of his work on power and,in part, `government.' I will argue that inorder to properly understand the politicalimpact of some aspects of ICT, especially thedigital divide, one needs an account of howpower operates that includes more traditionaltypes of power-over. To the extent that I willdeal with these concerns, the paper is both acontribution to debates about the nature andscope of Foucault's theory of power and to theissue of the effects of the digital divide. (shrink)