Digital Divide Lecture 1

What is the definition of the “digital divide”? Does it just affect technology?

gap between indivduals/households/business regarding their internet/communication technology access + opportunities of usage

>affects autonomy + fairness in the digital marketplace

What are the three levels of digital divide?

1st level: access and infrastructure

2nd level: skills and usage (literacy!)

3rd level: outcomes and benefits

How does the digital divide shape consumer experiences?

• limited access to essential services (not being able to book a train ticket because they don’t know how to work with the internet)

• inability to compare/analyse options

• less visibility and exclusion (other groups are more visible)

• less autonomy and voice (youtube algorithm: am I really interested or not?)

Where does korea stand regarding internet access and infrastructure? Where does it stand compared to worldwide standards?

the gap between internet access in urban and rural areas has been widening over the years, even though the average speed has increased

worlwide compared it’s a very small gap: because it's a very small country and korea's economy grew very fast (e.g. US is too big for that good of an infrastructure)

What is consumer inequality about?

• Traditionally: access to goods and services

• digital age: unequal capacity of people to be visible, targeted and protected within data-driven digital systems

What are the 4 dimensions of consumer inequality?

• Visibility: some people are systematically more visible than others

• Targeting: differentiated content is presented to segmented groups, this can reproduce biases + exclude certain groups

• Personalization: financial goals > user autonomy

• Surveillance & Data Asymmetry: consumers produce data but don’t benefit from it (> power imbalance!)

What is datafication and power about?

• clicks, searches, scrolls = data

• data is monetized: the more you reveal, the more valuable you are (more visible/served, some even become hyper-visible while low-data users are invisible)

What’s “algorithmic decision-making”?

algorithms rank, filter + suggest and are used in ads, price offers, job listings

DIFFERENT FROM PERSON TO PERSON

What are the three types of pricing dicussed in the case?

• dynamic pricing: based on supply, demand, timing, environment (higher prices during peak season (plane tickets) than during off-season)

• personalized pricing: tailorrd to individual consumers based on personal data, browsing history, location

• algorithmic pricing: automated rules/machine learning models that react to market signals