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The Palgrave Handbook
of Everyday Digital Life
Edited by
Hopeton S. Dunn · Massimo Ragnedda
Maria Laura Ruiu · Laura Robinson
The Palgrave Handbook of Everyday Digital Life
 Hopeton S. Dunn • Massimo Ragnedda
Maria Laura Ruiu • Laura Robinson
Editors

The Palgrave
Handbook of Everyday
Digital Life
Editors
Hopeton S. Dunn Massimo Ragnedda
University of Botswana Northumbria University
Gaborone, Botswana Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Maria Laura Ruiu Laura Robinson

Northumbria University Santa Clara University
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Albany, CA, USA

ISBN 978-3-031-30437-8    ISBN 978-3-031-30438-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30438-5

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 Foreword

Everyday life in the title of this volume signals an important emphasis on how
people experience their digitally mediated lives. This is in contrast to discus-
sions in both the global North and South on the expected impacts of invest-
ment in digital technologies and services on economies. These discussions are
often accompanied by forecasts of how all countries will benefit from adopting
the latest technology infrastructures and gain access to the big tech company
platforms and their services.
Following in the critical research tradition on digitalisation and datafication
where there are many concerns about the proliferating monetisation of indi-
viduals’ data with little or no regard for their fundamental rights, the first spe-
cial feature of this volume is its shift of analytical focus away from a neoliberal
view. In this view, individuals are treated simply as agents who are assumed to
express their demand in a market where big tech companies respond by supply-
ing social media, audiovisual and other digital commercial services. In this vol-
ume, individuals are contextualised—they have agency, but they are also subject
to powerful corporate, and often state, pressures aimed at shaping their
behaviours.
The second special feature is a focus on individual and group experiences in
the broader context of their everyday experiences and their capacities to
embrace or resist the digital technologies on offer. In focusing on everyday life,
this collection calls attention to how media and communication technologies
are interwoven with the fabric of the everyday—with routines, rituals and
behaviours. This approach signposts what comes to be normalised culturally,
socially, politically and economically when people are immersed in a digital
ecology—an ecology that comes with specific affordances and implications for
people’s social, cultural, political and working lives.
In this volume, the authors do not treat digital technologies as being ‘out
there’. Instead, they examine how these technologies are implicated in people’s
‘ways of operating’ as Michel de Certeau might have put it. They illustrate the
many everyday practices through which digital technology users can shape or

v
vi FOREWORD

reappropriate digital technologies in their own interests, instead of in the inter-

ests of often distant providers of digital platforms and services. The authors
acknowledge the multiple harms and sometimes alienating conditions of digi-
tally mediated everyday life, but they also look to the potentials, if new prac-
tices can be put in place and if governments are able to introduce policies and
regulations that curtail harmful practices.
While the companies and governments that are investing in artificial intelli-
gence and the algorithms that increasingly monitor and govern the lives of
people in the global South and North exert their power and hegemony through
overt and covert (nudging) strategies and practices, the contributors to this
volume refreshingly draw attention to the fact that digital dominance is not
uniformly experienced. Many chapters highlight resistance strategies and every-
day tactics. Instead of focusing exclusively on what the digital world does to
people, the great strength of this collection is its focus on what people do with
or make of the digital world and how they go about changing it.
When digital technologies are not contributing to more equitable societies,
the challenge for researchers is to uncover why this is so and what can be done
about it. Even as technology designers and business strategists contain and
constrain people’s behaviour in multiple ways, it is crucial to reveal and protect
local ways of ‘knowing’ or indigenous epistemologies as Sohail Inayatullah
might argue. As the authors show, insights can then be deployed as a means of
countering exploitative visions and practices associated with a commercially
datafied future.
The contributors to this volume also acknowledge that access to, and par-
ticipation in, a system of mediated digital communication is becoming a pre-
condition for full participation in society. If the distribution of access is unfair,
action is needed. Values, actions, interests and constraints all need to be
revealed through empirical study. When the prevailing digital services business
models operate by surveilling individuals when they go online, the implications
are felt by all—in the labour force, in education, in social service, and in the
media. In this sense, the relations of digital production and consumption are
always political, and they are often discriminatory.
Structuring this collection around five themes—Social Media and Digital
Lifeworlds; Digital Affordances and Contestations; Digital Divides and
Inclusion Strategies; Work, Culture and Digital Consumption; and New Media
and Digital Journalism—the opportunities, but also the exclusions and harms,
linked to digital technologies are addressed. The reader will find insight into
the varying types of platform architectures or ‘grammars of action’, following
Philip Agre, that influence the way digital platforms shape cultural, social and
political norms. The reader will also find chapters which critique the always
persistent discourse about digital transformation as if it is necessarily universally
beneficial for all.
Attention is given in this volume to developments in artificial intelligence
that are infusing societies, conditioning ways of interpreting and acting in the
world. The chapters illustrate how digital technologies are enabling the
 FOREWORD vii

pervasive monetisation of data and how both adults and children manage to
navigate their everyday lives, their socialisation, their identities and their access
to education as well as their jobs and their increasingly precarious working lives.
Several chapters focus on how digital systems provided by big tech compa-
nies—especially in response to the Covid-19 pandemic—have influenced data
collection and led to new forms and intensities of population surveillance. Also
highlighted are pressures to adopt new forms of working in paid employment,
new approaches to humanitarian responses to crises and novel strategies to
sustain local industries such as tourism. The authors show how new practices of
governance have been introduced from above and that sometimes they can be
resisted from below. They highlight creative and beneficial adaptations to a
changing digital ecology such as the introduction of robots or the gamification
of work tasks, but importantly, they do not neglect maladaptive outcomes
which mean that workers and volunteers face new pressures to perform more
efficiently. In all these instances, the authors emphasise the need for digital
technology applications to be designed and implemented consistent with the
contexts in which they are applied and with human well-being in mind.
Importantly, the authors stress the way digital apps and social media may be
empowering for some, but lead to risks and harms that are incompatible with
people’s rights to safety and to live in a just world. From abusive online com-
munication about intimate relationships to cybercrime and mis- or disinforma-
tion, as well as the changing, often idealised, representations of cities online,
the contributors demonstrate how their digital ecologies are producing new
inequalities and perpetuating existing societal injustices, both for the excluded
and disadvantaged and for the included.
Everyday lives are increasingly also mediated by digital journalism which is
implicated in representing a close and distant world. Several chapters emphasise
how mainstream journalism tends to marginalise certain perspectives on issues
like climate change, the need to consider what public service journalism can
mean when it is owned and operated by the state, and whether alternative
modes of critical journalistic practice are feasible in the face of persistent
underfunding.
In this volume, the contributors do not set out simply to describe a chang-
ing digital landscape. Also addressed is what can be done to achieve radical
change. Several chapters highlight the need to enhance individual and collec-
tive agency and responsibility, to engage in activism through involving children
in the design and development of digital services, to use digital resources to
support local or regional languages, and to develop trusted digital services to
support local and national economic activities. They also highlight strategies of
formal governance such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities (CRPD) and the need for governments to introduce digital strate-
gies that aim to indigenise digitalisation agendas.
Just as Roger Silverstone’s work on the everyday life experience of digital
technologies emphasised attending to both the over- and under-determination
of relationships involved in the development and use of innovative digital
viii FOREWORD

technologies, the contributors to this volume succeed in demonstrating that

digitally infused everyday lives are both historically situated and contingent
upon institutional forces and individual actions. This dialectic creates ambigu-
ity in the outcomes of digitalisation and the exercise of power from below and
from above. From above, as Shoshana Zuboff argues, in today’s digital envi-
ronments ‘illegitimate knowledge’ is being transformed into ‘illegitimate
power’. From below, this volume succeeds in demonstrating that options for
resistance exist and that, through action, opportunities can be created for miti-
gating the harms of digitalisation and, in some instances, bringing the benefits
of digitalisation into the experience of people’s everyday lives.
In short, this book may be about digital technologies, but its focus on the
‘everyday’ means that is—as it should be—principally about ‘the conceptions,
interests and ideals from which human ways of treating one another spring, and
the systems of value on which such ends of life are based’.1

Department of Media and Communications

Robin Mansell
London School of Economics and Political Science
London, UK

1
Berlin, I. (1959/2003) The Crooked Timber of Humanity. London: Random House, p. 1.
 Acknowledgements

The publication of this Handbook is the labour of many hands and minds and
involved long hours of work and sacrifices. The editors would like to thank
everyone who has assisted in making this book possible. We thank the large
number of contributors who responded positively to our invitation to prepare
a chapter and who worked tirelessly and within rigorous deadlines to ensure
the timely publication of the Handbook.
We are also indebted to the commissioning editors, unknown reviewers and
production assistants from Palgrave Macmillan for their painstaking reviews
and meticulous attention to detail in the production and publication of this
volume. We are grateful to Professor Robin Mansell for expertly producing the
Foreword and to other distinguished colleagues who offered testimonials on
the quality of the book’s ideas and overall content. To our colleagues at the
University of Botswana in Southern Africa, Northumbria University in the
United Kingdom and Santa Clara University in the United States, the editors
say thank you for your encouragement and active support.
The editors are joined by our wide-ranging group of contributors in thank-
ing our families and other loved ones who allowed us time and space to gener-
ate and document our research and ideas for the chapters and for all elements
of the book. We thank them sincerely for their patience, love, understanding
and support.
To all others who assisted, we extend our profound appreciation, even as we
assume full responsibility for any errors, weaknesses or omissions in the book.
We trust that readers all over the world will find value, as well as resonance with
their own digital experiences, as they traverse the pages and navigate the con-
cepts of everyday digital life presented in this book.

ix
 Contents

1 Living
 Digitally: Mapping the Everyday Contours of a Still-­
Emerging Data-Driven Era  1
Hopeton S. Dunn, Massimo Ragnedda, Maria Laura Ruiu, and
Laura Robinson

Part I Social Media and Digital Lifeworlds  21

2 Artificial
 Intelligence and Everyday Knowledge 23
Veridiana Domingos Cordeiro and Fabio Cozman

3 Economic
 Aspects of Social Media: Facebook’s Potential for
Generating Business in Iran 37
Hamid Abdollahyan and Mahin Sheikh Ansari

4 The
 Digital Shaping of a City: A Biography of ‘Cyberabad’ in
Three Acts 61
Usha Raman and Aditya Deshbandhu

5 Social
 Media, Space and Place in South Africa: #egoli
(Johannesburg) on Instagram 77
Tanja Bosch

6 Mapping
 the Digital Fabric of Cities: ‘Site Codes’ as Spatial
Identifiers in Urban China in the COVID-19 Pandemic 91
Deqiang Ji and Xiaomei Jiang

xi
xii Contents

Part II Digital Affordances and Contestations 107

7 Hidden
 Abodes: Digital Lives and Distant Others109
Graham Murdock

8 The
 Din and Stealth of the Digital Revolution125
Renata Włoch

9 Contentious
 Content on Messaging Apps: Actualising Social
Affordances for Normative Processes on Telegram143
Nathalie Van Raemdonck and Jo Pierson

10 Glimpses
 of the Greek ‘Me Too’ Movement on Facebook:
Tracking Digital Interactivity and the Quest for Equity and
Empowerment169
Sophia Kaitatzi-Whitlock

11 Non-Consensual
 Intimate Image Sharing on the Internet:
Regulating Betrayal in Jamaica and India187
Allison J. Brown

Part III Digital Divides and Inclusion Strategies 203

12 Indigenizing
 a Developing Country’s Digitization Agenda:
Re-visioning ICTs in Ghana205
Kwaku O. Antwi and William Asante

13 Nurturing
 the Transformative Agency and Activism of
Children Through Digital Technology223
Netta Iivari and Marianne Kinnula

14 The
 Challenges of Gamification in Brazil’s Educational
Delivery During Covid 19245
Julia Stateri

15 Re-thinking
 Critical Digital Literacies in the Context of
Compulsory Education261
Anastasia Gouseti, Liisa Ilomäki, and Minna Lakkala

16 Universal
 Design and Assistive Digital Technologies:
Enhancing Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities283
Floyd Morris
 Contents  xiii

17 Digital
 Divides and Policy Interventions in a Pandemic World:
Issues of Social Inclusion in Argentina307
Bernadette Califano

Part IV Work, Culture and Digital Consumption 325

18 The
 Changing Nature of Work in Digital Everyday Life327
Jessica S. Dunn and Hopeton S. Dunn

19 Indigenous
 People and Digital Misinformation in the
Brazilian Amazon347
Cristian Berrío-Zapata, Monica Tenaglia, and Sheyla Gabriela
Alves Ribeiro

20 Regenerating
 African Languages and Cultures Through
Information Technology Strategies363
Thapelo J. Otlogetswe

21 Dancing
 in the Digital Domain: Mas, Media and Covid 19 in
Caribbean Carnival379
Alpha Obika

22 Digital
 Transformation in Development Settings: Remote
Volunteering and Digital Humanitarianism397
Bianca Fadel and Thiago Elert Soares

Part V New Media and Digital Journalism 415

23 Digital
 Journalism: The State of Play in Russia and in Global
Academia417
Elena Vartanova, Anna Gladkova, and Denis Dunas

24 Digital
 Climate Newsletters: The New Alternative for Climate
Journalism?439
Hanna E. Morris

25 Public
 Service Broadcasting in Transition: The Rise of Digital
Non-State Public Service Media in Southern Africa451
Khulekani Ndlovu and Peter Mutanda
xiv Contents

26 A
 Typology of Digital Leaks as Journalistic Source Materials469
Philip Di Salvo

27 Gig
 Labour and the Future of Freelance Journalism in South
Africa and Zimbabwe489
Dumisani Moyo and Allen Munoriyarwa

Index507
 Notes on Contributors

Hamid Abdollahyan is a professor in the Department of Communication in

the Faculty of the Social Sciences at the University of Tehran and a visiting
scholar at the Faculty of Arts at the University of British Columbia in Canada.
In addition to teaching research methods at BA, MA and PhD levels,
Adollahyan’s main areas of interest include addressing changes that are affect-
ing human communications in the context of historical sociology.
Kwaku O. Antwi is an ICT policy analyst and researcher at the Ghana
Institute of Management and Public Administration in Accra, Ghana. He holds
an MA from the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. He provides consulting
support for government reform projects and international businesses. He is a
PhD candidate in Public Administration at the Ghana Institute of Management
and Public Administration.
William Asante is a lecturer in the Department of Public Policy and
Management of the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and
Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS) in Ghana. He has a keen
interest in public policy change dynamics, natural resource and environmental
politics, public management and sustainable development. He is working in
the areas of public service delivery at the local government level and the politics
of harnessing Ghana’s renewable energy for sustainable development.
Cristian Berrío-Zapata is in the Faculty of Archival Science (Institute of
Applied Social Sciences) at the Federal University of Pará (UFPa), Brazil. He is
acting as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Library and
Documentation at Carlos III University (UC3M), Spain, with a project about
digital sustainability in the Amazon. He holds a PhD in Information Science
from Universidad Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Brazil.
Tanja Bosch is Associate Professor of Media Studies and Production at the
Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town. Her mono-
graph, Social Media and Everyday Life in South Africa (Routledge, 2021),

xv
xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

explores how South Africans use social media apps for personal and group
identity formation. Bosch has also published in the area of social media activism
and campaigns in South Africa.
Allison J. Brown is a PhD candidate and Associate Instructor in the Media
School at Indiana University, Bloomington, US. She is Managing Editor of
Black Camera: An International Film Journal. She holds a BA in Media and
Communication and an MA in Communication Studies, both from the
University of the West Indies. Her central focus for research is on technology
policy and access issues, particularly, emerging media, changing environments
and digital divides. She is also interested in representation of race and gender
in film and on television.
Bernadette Califano (PhD) is a professor at the University of Buenos Aires
(UBA) in Media and Communication Policies. She holds a PhD in Social
Sciences (UBA). She is a member of the National Scientific and Technical
Research Council (CONICET), researcher at the National University of
Quilmes, Argentina, and former Fulbright Visiting Scholar at University of
California San Diego (UCSD) in the US. Her research focuses on media regu-
lation and the political economy of communication, as well as advisory work on
communication policies and rights.
Veridiana Domingos Cordeiro is a Postdoc at the Center for Artificial
Intelligence at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Cordeiro holds a BA in
Social Sciences; an MS degree in Sociology from the University of São Paulo,
Brazil; and a PhD in Sociology from the University of São Paulo. She has also
completed graduate work at the University of Chicago. Her research is on the
sociology of knowledge, digital sociology and distributed cognition.
Fabio Cozman holds BA and MS degrees in Mechatronic Engineering from
the University of São Paulo, Brazil, and a PhD in Robotics from Carnegie
Mellon University. He is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of
São Paulo and Director of the C4AI—Center of Artificial Intelligence (IBM—
São Paulo Foundation). He develops research on knowledge representation,
reasoning and probabilistic logics.
Aditya Deshbandhu is Lecturer in Communications and Digital Media
Sociology at the University of Exeter. A researcher of video game studies, new
media and the digital divide, Deshbandhu examines how people engage with
digital artefacts and seeks to understand how these interactions shape everyday
lives. Deshbandhu’s research has examined social media and Over-the-top
(OTT) platforms alongside video games and digital cultures. Deshbandhu is
the author of Gaming Culture(s) in India: Digital Play in Everyday Life and
the Twenty-First Century in a Hundred Games.
Philip Di Salvo is a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Humanities and
Social Sciences at the University of St. Gallen (HSG) Switzerland. Philip’s main
research interests are investigative journalism, Internet surveillance, the rela-
tionship between journalism and hacking, and black box technologies. At
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xvii

HSG, Philip is involved in the Human Error Project, dealing with the fallacies
of algorithms in reading humans. Previously, he was a Visiting Fellow at the
London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)’s Department of
Media and Communications (2021–2022) and he held different research and
teaching positions at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI)’s Institute of
Media and Journalism (2012–2021).
Denis Dunas (PhD in Philology) is a leading researcher at the Faculty of
Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University, and an associate professor at
the Russian Academy of Education. His research interests include media the-
ory, Russian media studies, anthropology of media and media consumption
by youth.
Jessica S. Dunn is an occupational psychologist and a senior lecturer at
Nottingham Trent University in the UK. She studied at the University of the
West Indies, Jamaica, and the University of Nottingham, UK. Dunn has pub-
lished in higher education and applied psychology. Her research interests relate
to socio-cognitive factors in technology applications and the changing nature
of work.
Hopeton S. Dunn is Professor of Communications Policy and Digital Media
at the University of Botswana and senior research associate at the School of
Communication, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Dunn is the for-
mer Director of the Caribbean School of Media and Communication
(CARIMAC) (UWI Jamaica), where he also headed the Mona ICT Policy
Centre (MICT). His extensive research spans such areas as technology policy
reforms, new media in the Global South, telecommunications for development
and broadcasting regulation.
Bianca Fadel is a research fellow in the Centre for International Development
at Northumbria University, UK. She is an interdisciplinary academic involved
in policy-­focused initiatives, with particular interests in community develop-
ment in the Global South. Her work focuses on local volunteering, as well as
on agency and belonging in humanitarian and development settings. As a prac-
titioner, she has previously worked as advisor for humanitarian diplomacy at
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brazil. Her work has also involved the imple-
mentation of local youth engagement in voluntary projects with the Brazilian
Red Cross.
Anna Gladkova is a leading media researcher and the Director of International
Affairs Office at the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State
University. She is co-­chair of the International Association for Media and
Communication Research’s (IAMCR’s) Digital Divide Working Group. She
has published and edited collections on ethnic media, multicultural affairs,
digital inequalities and digital divides. Her most recent books include Digital
Inequalities in the Global South (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), co-edited with
Massimo Ragnedda, and Ethnic Journalism in the Global South (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2021), co-edited with Sadia Jamil.
xviii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Anastasia Gouseti is Lecturer in Digital Education at the University of Hull,

UK. Her research interests include the use of digital media in educational set-
tings and the role of new technologies in promoting teaching, learning and
collaboration. She has been involved in various funded research projects in the
field of educational technologies and has published widely in this area. She is
the Principal Investigator for the Erasmus+ DETECT project which focuses on
supporting educators with developing critical digital literacies.
Netta Iivari is Professor of Information Systems at the University of Oulu,
Finland. She has a background in cultural anthropology as well as in informa-
tion systems and human-computer interaction. Her research interest concerns
understanding and strengthening people’s participation in shaping and making
their digital futures. Recently, her research has addressed empowerment of
children through critical design. Her research is strongly influenced by inter-
pretive and critical research traditions.
Liisa Ilomäki is a researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Her
research interests are in learning and teaching with digital technology, changes
within school and teaching communities, and knowledge work competencies
in education. She has been involved in several projects and activities in technol-
ogy-enhanced learning, as either principal investigator or a member of a
research team.
Deqiang Ji is a professor and Deputy Dean of the Institute for Community
with Shared Future, at Communication University of China in Beijing. He has
served as the Vice Chair of the International Communication Section of the
International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR)
since 2016. He has been a Program Council Member of Dialogue of
Civilizations Research Institute (Berlin) since 2020. He is also Commissioning
Editor of Global Media and China (Sage) since 2016, and Editorial Board
Member of Annals of the International Communication Association (Routledge)
since 2020.
Xiaomei Jiang is a media and communication researcher and a PhD candi-
date at Communication University of China. She has been a media researcher
for several years. Her most recent research addresses crucial interfaces between
digital platforms, cities and citizen participation.
Sophia Kaitatzi-Whitlock is Professor of Politics and Political Communication
at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She holds a PhD in
Communication from the University of Westminster, London, and an MA in
Communications Policy Studies from City, University London. She has written
extensively on European digital policymaking, global and EU technology and
cultural policies, the implications of WTO agreements for key media sectors.
Kaitatzi-Whitlock is also interested in crisis reporting, the political economy of
knowledge, and symbolic goods and the media.
Marianne Kinnula is Associate Professor of Human-Centred Design and
Digitalisation at University of Oulu, Finland, as well as the research unit
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xix

vice-leader of the group INTERACT. Her research is in the fields of informa-

tion systems and human-computer interaction with inter- and transdisciplinary
approaches. Kinnula’s interests are in social sustainability of technology in
terms of social inclusion, empowerment and ethical stances.
Minna Lakkala is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Education
at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She specialises in technology-enhanced
teaching and learning, knowledge creation pedagogy and competence learning
at all educational levels. Her main research interest is in educators’ pedagogical
expertise in implementing collaborative practices and digital technologies in
teaching. One of her projects is ‘Argumentative Online Inquiry in Building
Students’ Knowledge Work Competences’ (ARONI).
Floyd Morris is a Caribbean communications researcher and advocate in the
field of disability rights and access. He is the Director of the University of the
West Indies Centre for Disability Studies (UWICDS). His recent publications
include the book Political Communication Strategies in Post-independence
Jamaica, 1972–2006, as well as an autobiography titled By Faith, Not by Sight.
Morris, who is blind, served as President of Jamaica’s Senate between 2013
and 2016. He was the 2020 recipient of the UWI’s Vice Chancellor’s Award
for Excellence in Public Service. Morris was elected to the United Nations
Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for the term 2021–2025.
Hanna E. Morris (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is Assistant Professor of
Climate Communication at the School of the Environment at the University of
Toronto where she researches and teaches interdisciplinary courses on media,
culture and the politics of the climate crisis. She is writing a book entitled
Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power and has
recently co-edited the book entitled Climate Change and Journalism:
Negotiating Rifts of Time.
Dumisani Moyo is Executive Dean, Faculty of Humanities at North-West
University, South Africa. His research interests include media policy and regu-
lation, and media, politics, culture and technology in Africa. His major works
include co-edited books on radio in Africa, media policies in Southern Africa
and global reforms in media practice. In 2020 he published the volume
Mediating Xenophobia in Africa: Unpacking Discourses of Migration, Belonging
and Othering. He is a co-editor of the 2021 book Re-imagining Communication
in Africa and the Caribbean.
Allen Munoriyarwa is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media Studies
at the University of Botswana. His research interests are in journalism, news
production practices, and social media platforms. He has also researched widely
on data journalism, big data and digital surveillance.
Graham Murdock is Professor Emeritus of Culture and Economy at
Loughborough University. Murdock’s own research focuses on the changing
organisation and impact of contemporary communication systems. It ranges
from studies of institutional structures to research on cultural forms and
xx NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

everyday practices. He is widely known for his work in the critical political
economy of culture and communications and for his scholarly explorations of
the relations between the organisation of communication systems, the exercise
of power and the dynamics of change.
Peter Mutanda is a filmmaker, writer, visual artist and educator. He is a lec-
turer in the Media Studies Department at the University of Botswana. His
creative works in video installations include an award-winning project, ‘The
Besiegement—Advocating Mental Health’. He is actively engaged in ‘new
media’ productions and in analysing the digital media landscape through cre-
ative lenses. Mutanda holds an MA in Theatre and Global Development from
the University of Leeds, UK.
Khulekani Ndlovu is a media and communication studies lecturer at the
University of Botswana’s Media Studies Department. His research interests
include critical media studies, journalism and ‘post-truthism’, youth and media,
digital media in the global south and the ethics of mediation. Ndlovu holds a
PhD in Media Studies from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Alpha Obika is a Caribbean Social Scientist and Policy Analyst located at the
Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Jamaica. Obika
lectures in new media, digital communication, cultural policy and events man-
agement at the Caribbean School of Media and Communication (CARIMAC),
UWI. He holds a PhD in Communication Studies from UWI and an MA in
Cultural Policy and Management from City, University of London.
Thapelo J. Otlogetswe is Professor of Linguistics and Lexicography at the
University of Botswana (UB). His research is in lexical computing and corpus
lexicography, with particular reference to the Setswana language. He serves as
Deputy Dean, Faculty of Humanities, University of Botswana. He is a recipient
of the Presidential Order of Honour, Botswana. Otlogetswe is a member of the
African Academy of Languages and African Association of Lexicography and
sits on the editorial boards of Lexikos and Marang journals.
Jo Pierson is Professor of Digital Technologies and Public Values in the
Department of Media and Communication Studies at the Vrije Universiteit
Brussel (VUB) in Belgium. He is also the Principal Investigator at the SMIT
research centre at VUB. He is in charge of the research unit ‘Data, Privacy &
Empowerment’, working in close cooperation with ‘imec’, the R&D and inno-
vation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technology. He is affiliated with
Hasselt University. Pierson’s main research interests are in data privacy, digital
platforms, algorithms, user innovation and value-­based design.
Massimo Ragnedda is Associate Professor of Media and Communication at
Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK, and a visiting professor at the Faculty
of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University. He is co-chair of the
Digital Divide Working Group of the International Association for Media and
Communication Research (IAMCR), co-convenor of NINSO (Northumbria
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xxi

Internet and Society Research Group), co-editor of the Palgrave Studies in

Digital Inequalities book series, and ambassador for the Digital Poverty
Alliance. He has authored or edited 15 books. His articles appear in numerous
peer-reviewed journals, and many of his book chapters are published in English,
Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Russian texts. His most recent book is titled
Enhancing Digital Equity: Connecting the Digital Underclass (Palgrave, 2020)
Usha Raman is a professor in the Department of Communication, University
of Hyderabad, India. Her research interests include digital cultures, science
and technology studies, feminist media studies and journalism pedagogy. She is
co-founder of FemLab, a feminist futures of work initiative. Before joining the
University, she headed the communications department at L V Prasad Eye
Institute. She has written for the popular press on topics related to health,
technology, women’s issues, education and digital culture.
Sheyla Gabriela Alves Ribeiro is a researcher and documentalist at the
Federal Rural University of the Amazon (UFRA) in Brazil. Ribeiro was trained
in Librarianship at the Faculdades Integradas de Jacarepaguá (FIJ) and holds a
BA degree in Information Systems from the Universidade Federal Rural da
Amazônia (UFRA). She has conducted graduate research work in Information
Science at the Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA).
Laura Robinson is a professor in the Department of Sociology at Santa Clara
University and faculty associate at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for
Internet & Society. She holds a PhD from UCLA, where she held a Mellon
Fellowship in Latin American Studies. Robinson’s other affiliations include the
UC Berkeley Institute for the Study of Societal Issues, the Cornell University
Department of Sociology, Department of Sociology at Trinity College Dublin,
USC Annenberg Center and the École Normale Supérieure.
Maria Laura Ruiu is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Northumbria University
(UK). Her first PhD in Sociology (University of Sassari, Italy, 2014) focused
on community development, whilst her second PhD, in Media and
Communication (Northumbria University, 2019), explored media construc-
tion of climate change narratives. Her research interests include environmental
and media sociology, management and governance of climate change commu-
nication, social capital and digital media, new forms of digital vulnerability in
times of pandemic, and management of COVID-19 in Italy. She has investi-
gated digital inequalities in the UK and is exploring the Bourdieusian concept
of habitus in relation to the combination of technological competencies, envi-
ronmental awareness and existing socio-economic-cultural backgrounds.
Mahin Sheikh Ansari is a lecturer at Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran,
and Postdoc at Tehran University. Ansari holds a PhD from the Department of
Sociology at Payame Noor University of Tehran and also degrees in Sociology
from the Islamic Azad University and in Engineering from the Shahid Beheshti
University.
xxii Notes on Contributors

Thiago Elert Soares is a development professional with work experience at

the United Nations and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale
Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). He holds an MSc degree in Development Studies
from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) as a
Chevening scholar and an MPP degree from the Hertie School in Berlin as a
Helmut-Schmidt scholar.
Julia Stateri is a faculty member at the Institute of Technology and Leadership
in São Paulo, Brazil, as well as the Founder and Creative Director at Oficina
Lúdica. Stateri holds a PhD in Visual Arts from the Institute of Arts at
UNICAMP, an MA in Education, Art and Cultural History from the
Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, and a BA in Graphic Design from the
Faculty of Communication and Arts at Senac in São Paulo.
Monica Tenaglia holds a doctorate in Information Science from the
University of Brasília in Brazil. She lectures at Federal University of Pará
(UFPA), Brazil. Her PhD explored the relationship between the military dicta-
torship archives and truth commissions in Brazil. She is a postdoctoral researcher
at the University of Brasília and investigates the training of archivists for the
identification, use and access to archives on human rights violations. She has
previously worked in a variety of roles as an archivist in England and Brazil,
including with the Brazilian National Truth Commission.
Nathalie Van Raemdonck is a PhD candidate at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel
(VUB). She is part of the imec-SMIT research group and is affiliated with the
Brussels School of Governance (BSoG). She works with the Hannah Arendt
Institute on projects concerning online polarisation. Her research interests are
disinformation and the influence of platform affordances on group dynamics
and information flows.
Elena Vartanova is Professor, Dean and Chair in Media Theory and
Economics at the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University,
Russia. She is also Academician of the Russian Academy of Education and
President of the National Association of Mass Media Researchers (NAMMI).
Her research focuses on the Russian media system, media economics, media
theory, journalism education in Russia, digital inequalities, digital capital and
other topics.
Renata Włoch is a Polish sociologist focusing on digital transformation and
global studies. She is Chair of Digital Sociology in the Faculty of Sociology at
the University of Warsaw, Poland. She is involved in knowledge-exchange with
public institutions and business and is co-creator of DELab (Digital Economy
Lab) at the University of Warsaw. Włoch is Scientific Director and Coordinator
of the project ‘Developing Digital Sociology at the UW’.
 List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Economic aspects of social media 42

Fig. 3.2 Social media statistics in Iran 2009 to 2020 55
Fig. 3.3 Social media statistics in Turkey 2009 to 2020 56
Fig. 3.4 Social media statistics in the world 2009 to 2020 56
Fig. 5.1 Expansion of city specific hashtags 81
Fig. 5.2 Coding categories 82
Fig. 9.1 The interactability in a one-to-many isolated & directed Channel 154
Fig. 9.2 The interactability in a one-to-many Channel with discussion 155
Fig. 12.1 Digital inclusion pyramid. (Source: Author construct from the
literature)211
Fig. 13.1 Framework for mapping projects on children’s agency and activism
through digital technology development. (Source: Figure generated
by the authors) 239
Fig. 14.1 Increased interest in gamification in Brazil. (Source: Figure
generated using Google Trends (2022)) 247
Fig. 14.2 Regional section of searches. (Source: Figure generated using
Google Trends (2022)) 248
Fig. 14.3 Related searches in 2019. (Source: Figure generated using Google
Trends (2022)) 249
Fig. 14.4 Related Searches in 2020. (Source: Figure generated using Google
Trends (2022)) 249
Fig. 14.5 Related searches in 2021. (Source: Figure generated using Google
Trends (2022)) 250
Fig. 15.1 Critical digital literacies framework—Biblioteca UOC. (Figure
generated by the authors) 264
Fig. 15.2 Critical digital literacies (DETECT Project). (Figure generated by
the authors) 265
Fig. 17.1 Individuals using the internet and fixed broadband subscriptions
per 100 inhabitants in Argentina (2000–2010). Source: Own
analysis with data from ITU Database, 2021 312
Fig. 17.2 Fixed internet penetration rates per 100 households by province
(2°Q 2020–2°Q 2021). Source: Own analysis, with data from
ENACOM312

xxiii
 List of Tables

Table 3.1 Validity of Scales 44

Table 3.2 Frequency distribution of sample age and location 44
Table 3.3 T-test to evaluate the difference between the mean of grafted
bridging social capital in the control and experimental groups 45
Table 3.4 Pearson correlation test between social capital of Facebook users
and the intensity of usage 45
Table 3.5 Names of five brands that had the highest growth rates in Iran in
June 2014, 2015 and 2016 47
Table 3.6 Names of 5 brands in terms of number of followers in June 2014;
Iranians are at the top of the list 47
Table 3.7 Names of the 5 brands with the highest growth rates in June
2014 in Turkey 48
Table 3.8 The names of the 5 brands that are at the top of the list in June
2014, 2015 and January 2016 in terms of the number of followers
in Turkey 48
Table 3.9 The 5 brands that have the highest frequency in the world in
terms of the number of likes on Facebook in June 2014, 2015 and
January 2016, the first rank and February 2022 49
Table 3.10 Comparison between the number of Facebook followers of Iran,
the World and Turkey re airlines in the pages in June 2015 and
January 2016 50
Table 3.11 An example of some small Iranian businesses on Facebook in June
2014 and 2015 51
Table 3.12 Small Iranian businesses on Facebook, Telegram and Instagram in
February 2022 54
Table 3.13 Businesses Active in e-commerce 55
Table 5.1 General city-specific hashtags 80
Table 13.1 Presentation of the analyzed projects 228
Table 13.2 Summary of the results 238
Table 13.3 Guidelines for projects aiming at nurturing children’s agency and
activism in and through digital technology development 241
Table 18.1 Illustrative examples of changing jobs, work processes and services
derived from digital automation and artificial intelligence 332

xxv
xxvi List of Tables

Table 20.1 World Internet Statistics 366

Table 20.2 African countries—internet access 2022 367
Table 22.1 Overview of different types of remote volunteering engagement 402
Table 22.2 Critical questions towards sustainable digital ecosystems in
humanitarian and development work 408
Table 26.1 A summary of the case studies 478
 CHAPTER 1

Living Digitally: Mapping

the Everyday Contours
of a Still-Emerging Data-Driven Era

Hopeton S. Dunn, Massimo Ragnedda, Maria Laura Ruiu,

and Laura Robinson

Digital living is about creating new experiences and new value by using neural
networks and evolving data applications for a wide range of everyday activities.
This process occurs within the context of people’s lives, as they use newly
acquired literacies in a changing cultural milieu. At the heart of digital life are
the interlinked technologies of generative artificial intelligence, the inter-
net itself, the world-wide web, global social media platforms, and so-called
‘smart’ mobile phones.
To consider the latter, anthropologists now contend that for a high propor-
tion of humans, the smart phone is now ‘the place where we live’. According
to a year-long global study conducted by a team from University College
London (UCL), “the smartphone is no longer just a device that we use, it’s
become the place where we live.” According to Daniel Miller, the leader of the
study, “…at any point, whether over a meal, a meeting or other shared activity,
a person we are with can just disappear, having ‘gone home’ to their
smartphone.” (Hern, 2021, np). The UCL study argues further that it is not

H. S. Dunn (*)
University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana
M. Ragnedda • M. L. Ruiu
Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
L. Robinson
Santa Clara University, Albany, CA, USA

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2024
H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Everyday Digital Life,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30438-5_1
2 H. S. DUNN ET AL.

unreasonable to consider that “we now live in a placeless world” (Miller

et al., 2021, p. 220). Connectivity is enabled anywhere, anytime, by broadband
access that, if available, ensures content can be quickly retrieved, stored and
managed from remote locations ‘in the cloud’.
Digital everyday life, therefore, involves new ways of operating, seeing and
doing things. The enabling technologies of AI, the internet and their online
resources and applications combine with archived digital data-bases and non-­
broadcast processes to help deliver this experience for the connected. These
digital technologies generate, store and process digital pulses of information
signals in positive and non-positive states of zeros and ones, to create a seamless
world of content, productivity tools and social interactions.
However, well beyond technical definitions, ‘the digital’ has now acquired
the connotation of a new way of twenty-first Century life, pre-shadowed by such
twentieth century legacy technologies as wired, wireless and mobile systems,
satellites, digital fibre and computing. This accumulation of enhanced and
interlocking digital applications has accelerated the pace of human interchange
and global productivity (Dunn, 2021). ‘The Digital’, as a concept, has help to
transform commerce, manufacturing, governance and society, enabling society
to operate at a more agile pace than ever before.

The Internet
While the digital ecology is not confined to internet-based applications, it is its
online association that gives this digital world, perhaps, its greatest utility. In
this context, understanding the beneficial functions, disruptive role and global
gaps of the internet is key to grasping the power and potential of the digi-
tal domain.
Daily internet activities are expanding exponentially. Millions of online mes-
sages, e-mails and texts are sent, reviewed and uploaded, and hundreds of
thousands of hours of content are consumed by users globally. According to
Statista, every 60 seconds a total of one million hours of internet content was
exchanged by users worldwide (Statista, 2022).
In a global population that has now topped 8 billion, it remains the case that
a third of humanity or about 3 billion people, were still left outside of digitally
networked communities and remote from the everyday online workstreams
that others often take for granted.
At the same time, internet usage continues to grow (ITU, 2022). While
questions inevitably linger as to the quality of people’s online connectivity and
experiences, and about what exactly is being counted as access, it is undeniable
that a majority of people globally are engaged in digital life, as their content
creation and use of new digital applications continue unabated.
Yet, as we have noted, the digital extends beyond its immediate human
reality. In contrast to an analogue past, the affordances of digital life have
become integrated with a virtual reality existence. Being digital can now mean
forging a personal ‘avataric’ life linked to the metaverse, lived concurrently in
 1 LIVING DIGITALLY: MAPPING THE EVERYDAY CONTOURS… 3

real and virtual spaces. It can be the building of new networks of remotely
located ‘friends’, and creating the ability to complete work tasks and educa-
tional goals using re-imagined or remote intellectual tools. For many, digital
everyday life means being in constant contact with messaging on versatile
mobile devices, while also making use of evolved VR entertainment and media
services. Such digital users also benefit from smart new robotic AI appliances
that make domestic chores, work assignments and personal appointments
immeasurably quicker and easier to manage.

Digital Communities
To be more meaningful, digital life is often lived in community, through mobile
networks or platforms connected to family, work colleagues and strangers with
shared interests who we now call ‘friends’. New virtual reality tools enable us
to reinvent ourselves and our careers in ways that are limited only by our imagi-
nations and resources. We are able to gain access to seemingly limitless sources
of information, in a world that is dominated by an abundance of images, voice,
text and other forms of readily available big data. We can better manage issues
of health, wealth and well-being through access to connected professionals,
using dynamic devices that are operated from home, from work or in-transit,
in an ‘anywhere-anytime world’ where these locational distinctions are becom-
ing increasingly less relevant.
Yet, the above scenario is more akin to an idealised notion of digital every-
day life. The reality is often much more complex and challenging. This book is
about the multifaceted nature and human realities of a more nuanced digital
life, lived everyday by people of different backgrounds and nationalities, of
varied abilities, with differing digital access levels, reflecting relative scarcity or
abundance. This version of digital everyday life can mean living with constant
internet access deficits, sometimes restricted to a few minutes daily on a mobile
device, or none at all. It can mean facing the uncertainty of electrical power
outages or spotty internet access from unreliable service providers.
Everyday life in the digital world can mean the risk of toxic social media
experiences, such as online hate speech, trolling and revenge porn. It is a world
in which computer systems are frequently affected by various forms of cyberat-
tacks, including through ransomware, hacking, surveillance and espionage. It
is one in which we wrestle with issues of junk mail, unsolicited propaganda,
mis-information and disinformation. It can be a lifeworld that fosters alien-
ation, misogyny, depression, child abuse and even suicide. For many, the prom-
ise of an improved life in a digital environment can be a source of frustration,
demoralisation and confusion for communities and potential users who are
denied its affordances through poverty, or are made into victims by the insensi-
tive policies of some of its providers and the abhorrent conduct of some digital
inhabitants.
4 H. S. DUNN ET AL.

This Handbook of Everyday Digital Life is about mapping the contours of

these diverse digital experiences, as experienced on an individual level, on a
community basis, or as a nation, region or continent.

Digital Disruption
Varied forms of digital disruption are happening around the world in virtually
all sectors, every day. As we have seen, the decades-old shift from analogue
legacy systems to digital and online technology applications encompasses new
ways of working, communicating and interacting across disciplines, communi-
ties, businesses and boundaries. So pervasive are the everyday changes gener-
ated by artificial intelligence systems such as ChatGPT and Bard, that we are at
risk of failing to grasp how intensively human civilization is being transformed,
for better or worse. This transformation takes place in homes, in educational
institutions, in professional careers, in economic and social institutions, and in
the financial and banking sectors. It is also felt in popular culture, as well as in
the communication and media industries, just to name a few of the areas that
are being ‘disrupted’ by emerging digital and AI innovations.
While the internet is a forum for education, commerce, social interactions
and empowerment, it is also a site of cultural and linguistic loss and content
imbalance, within various indigenous groups and from remote regions of the
world. It is beset, as we have seen repeatedly, with the constant challenge of
criminality and misuse, whether through ransomware, identity theft, falsifica-
tions of news, creation of deceptive ‘deep fakes’ images, and promoting com-
mercial forgeries. Digital spaces can be appropriated by political demagogues
and military adventurists, and can also be subject to unwarranted controls by
authoritarian regimes. Disparities in digital resources and data literacy among
users globally can facilitate cultural hegemony and empower military adventur-
ists. The data divide can disproportionately privilege large platform private
conglomerates, run by corporate megalomaniacs with deep pockets.
Use of the internet and other digital tools in everyday life is, therefore, not
unproblematic. The internet represents a form of globalisation than can be a
two-edged sword (Dunn, 1995). However, despite its dysfunctionalities and
risks, it has also created vast new opportunities for minorities, engendered
countless start-ups, and increased the number of voices that can be heard
locally and globally. Online applications have enabled the adoption of new
business approaches, including fintech, block chain applications, and analytics
in corporate marketing and networking. The widespread use of digitally con-
nected utilities and appliances online, dubbed the Internet of Things (IoT), has
enhanced domestic and civic life. At the same time, the rise of new applications
in robotics and machine learning is changing the face of industry, military and
government administration.
Our electrical grids, water supply systems, urban transport and traffic man-
agement services, electoral and voting systems, agricultural and food process-
ing systems, as well as media and entertainment networks all now operate on
 1 LIVING DIGITALLY: MAPPING THE EVERYDAY CONTOURS… 5

digital platforms that are managed or delivered digitally. The combined effect
of these established or emerging online innovations is to create new everyday
experiences, as well as newly imagined domestic lifestyles and professional work
environments. In analysing them historically and collectively, it becomes clear
that there are many ways to characterise the still emerging digital era.

Alternative Periodisation
Many cultural and development analysts have provided alternative perspectives
and classifications of emergent technologies during their phases of interaction
with people. In this volume, we have mostly referred to the emergence of a
‘Digital Era’. However, in the broader sweep of human history and develop-
ment analysis, there are other perspectives that can inform our thinking about
alternative historical or technology periodisations.
It is clear that classifications of industrial era or periods of human civiliza-
tion are not mutually exclusive. They are often overlapping or they offer alter-
native ways of seeing and addressing similar issues and times. In some instances,
they focus on the broad sweep of mankind through history, while others seek
to characterize the significance of a single event, technology or epoch.
Understanding these alternative ways of looking at human and technological
interactions helps us to locate and deconstruct the innovations of the present,
and to see them as part of a historical continuum.
For example, it was said that we are living in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
(4IR), having navigated three previous industrial epochs. In his 2016 book,
Schwab invited his readers to “think about the staggering confluence of emerg-
ing technology breakthroughs covering wide-ranging fields such as artificial
intelligence (AI), robotics, the internet of things (IoT), autonomous vehicles,
3D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage
and quantum computing, to name a few.” (Schwab, 2016, p. 1).
According to Schwab, “major technological innovations are on the brink of
fuelling momentous change throughout the world, inevitably so.” (Schwab,
2016, p. 1) In this somewhat techno-determinist conception, Schwab runs the
risk of advancing the technological over the social and thereby undermine
notions of human agency and its historical role in directing and controlling our
futures. Such technology driven approaches can be problematic, especially if
they appear primarily to serve the interests of wealthy global elites in a renewed
hegemonic process of what has been variously called data colonialism and ‘glo-
balization from above’ (Dunn, 2012, p. 157).
However, while 4IR presents us with its vision of the present era, there are
yet other ways of understanding these moments in time.
The first decades of the twenty-first century have also been described as
reflecting a platform society, (Van Dijck et al., 2018) given the prevalence of
social media platforms that are used extensively among certain demographic
groups globally. Of the over 100 online platforms that are said to be in exis-
tence in 2022, the 30 largest such sites support at least 100 million active users
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