DISC - Digital Inequality in Smart Cities
Digital inequality is pervasive, touching all demographic groups and all areas of life, and its mechanisms and manifestations are highly complex, especially in societies that are saturated with new technologies. Currently the largest cities in Finland fully embrace digitalization, but at the same time, they lack in-depth, localized knowledge on how it affects everyday life: what kind of people cannot cope in the highly digitalized society, why, and how the lack of digital capability affects their lives. Further, we need more knowledge on profound means that can be used for fostering people’s digital capability and agency.
DISC is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary project funded by Research Council of Finland and spanning over 5 years, from 2020 to 2025. It is executed in collaboration with significant academic and non-academic partners, including the two largest cities of Finland, Helsinki and Espoo. The project produces new knowledge on 1) how cities understand and manage digital inequality, and 2) how city inhabitants experience digital inequality in cities that are executing urban digitalization intensively and are building specific smart city districts. We take under qualitative scrutiny two age groups whose digital capability is often seen through stereotypes: young adults, viewed often as “digital natives” and very tech-savvy, and older adults, seen usually as having very low digital capabilities. The aim is to build more nuanced conceptions. In addition to creating new knowledge, the project frames central design challenges related to digital inequality and smart cities and proposes solutions for them on conceptual and practical level.
Through careful empirical studies and theoretical work that aims to transgress knowledge silos of different fields, we explore profound ways to enhance digital equality; we search for a new smart city paradigm where digital literacy and education would be embedded within the structures of the smart city. The research follows a design anthropological approach spanning from understanding phase to design phase and covers different scales and perspectives. By now, we have conducted several sets of expert interviews at the capital region, and qualitative survey on digital inclusion and support covering six largest cities in Finland. Further, we have carried out interviews with city residents, mapping how urban digitalization is understood and experienced in the studied cities, in different areas and by different people. The PI of the project has also conducted a short-term ethnography in Barcelona, Spain, to understand how digital inequalities and inclusion are approached in this famous people-centric smart city.
In addition to scientific publications, the project has so far produced two master’s theses exploring the central themes:
Riikka Eskola (2023): Tackling digital inequalities that senior citizens experience in Espoo and Vantaa. Master’s Programme in Information Networks. Aalto University.
Ella Palo (2023): Digital Citizenship at the Smart City Site of Malmi : Resident views on socio-digital inequalities and digital agency. Master’s programme of Global Politics and Communications - Media and Democracy. University of Helsinki.
