Practices of Digital In- and Exclusion in Everyday Life Conference, April 3-4, Groningen, The Netherlands

The University of Groningen is organising a conference: Practices of Digital In- and exclusion in Everyday Life, taking place April 3-4, 2023, Groningen, The Netherlands.

This conference considers citizens’ everyday experiences of digital in- and exclusion. Governments, employers, schools and other institutions increasingly expect people to participate digitally; yet, even in digitally advanced countries where internet access is almost ubiquitous, large groups of citizens lack basic digital literacies. This conference focuses on the practices and tactics through which citizens deal with the increasing digitalization of their everyday life. Going beyond who is left behind or what skills or knowledge are lacking, it explicitly takes a user-centric approach to understand the impact of digital in-and exclusion from the perspective of citizens themselves.

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

The conference organisers invite studies and research projects that focus on issues and themes such as:

  • Practices and tactics of digital inclusion, digital exclusion, digital participation and/or digital literacy;
  • Lived experiences and understandings of digital literacies;
  • Differences between developing (digital/media) literacies in formal and informal learning spaces;
  • Studying everyday experiences surrounding digital inclusion in different contexts;
  • Conceptual tools for studying digital inclusion/exclusion in everyday life;
  • Methodological challenges of researching digital inclusion and/or digital literacies in everyday life;
  • Everyday uses and/or educational approaches to various literacies and participation;
  • And other topics closely related to user-centric perspectives, digital inclusion and everyday-life practices and tactics.

Abstracts (maximum 500 words) are invited for consideration as contributions to the main conference program through this application form. Please also add a short biography (+/- 250 words, including role and affiliation). Deadline for submission of abstracts: February 15, 2023. Notification of accepted papers will be given in late February. A selection of the papers will be published in a special issue of Media and Communication.

Conference fee: € 125 (incl. lunches, refreshments and conference dinner). For more information on the conference here.

This conference is organised in the context of the NWO supported research project “Informed Citizenship for All: Digital Literacy as Prerequisite for an Inclusive Society” (2020-2024; PI prof. Marcel Broersma). It is also related to projects the Digital Inclusion Lab of the University of Groningen does with 19 social stakeholders within the Digital Literacy Coalition (digital-literacy.nl).