The internet for empowerment of minority and marginalized users

TLDR

The internet holds promise for social equity and empowerment, especially for marginalized groups such as low‑income families, sexual minorities, and African‑American women, who are the focus of three studies examining everyday internet use. The study seeks to move beyond traditional digital‑divide categories to understand how marginalized groups use the internet meaningfully and to guide researchers in closing the divide in alignment with those groups’ goals and practices. The article reports findings from three digital‑divide studies focusing on low‑income families, sexual minorities, and African‑American women.

Abstract

The internet has tremendous potential to achieve greater social equity and empowerment and improve everyday life for those on the margins of society. This article presents the findings from three digital divide studies, each of which represents a different group of marginalized society members. Low-income families, sexual minorities and African-American women are represented in the three studies that employ different research approaches towards a common aim of contextualizing internet use in the everyday social practice of society’s ‘have-nots’. The aim is to step outside simple digital divide categories to understand how marginalized members of society incorporate computers and the internet into their daily lives in ways that are meaningful to them. An important goal is also to learn about how internet researchers can contribute to closing the digital divide in ways that converge with the goals, meanings and practices of people living on society’s margins.