Digital Divide Lecture 1

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

gap between indivduals/households/business regarding their opportunities to access info/communication technologies and use the internet

affects the fairness, autonomy and opportunity consumers experience in the digital marketplace

What are the three levels of digital divide?

1st level: access

2nd level: skills and usage

3rd level: outcomes

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 and analyse options

• invisibility 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: inequality regarding access to goods and services

• digital age: unequal capacity of individuals to be visible, targeted, served, and protected within data-driven digital system

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: prioritizing financial goals over user autonomy/empowerment

• Surveillance & Data Asymmetry: consumers produce data but don’t control/benefit from its exploitation (> 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: prices fluctuate based on supply, demand, timing, environment (higher prices during peak season (plane tickets) than during off-season)

• personalized pricing: prices for individual consumers based on personal data, browsing history, location

• algorithmic pricing: through automated rules/machine learning models that monitor market signals