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Blog #4: Digital Divide, Equity, and Inclusion

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, or Good Evening!!! Depending on the time of day that you are reading this, wherever, with whosoever. WELCOME…

To begin this blog, we will start by defining or framing the concepts of the digital divide, digital equity, and then Digital Inclusion. What is the digital divide in digital and how does it affect us daily? What is digital equity and how can we strive for an equitable amount of opportunities for each individual? Lastly, what is Digital Inclusion and how can we get every community and individual included in the digital realm?

What is Digital Divide? Digital Divide essentially within the world, so do you go when it comes to the Internet and technology if the structures that there is a virus amongst people of different Intersectionality or labels or status, such as class, race, sex, etc.

For Digital Divide, it is truly defined in examples by The “Scientific American” Blog. “connectivity inequalities - high-speed wireless for those who can afford it and second-class wireless for poor and rural Americans have been recently mentioned as a “new digital divide" (Radovanovic, 2011). The digital divide socially impacts every one of us on a daily basis because, with the divide, you won’t truly be given the skills and the tools to interact with every at the highest level. The Digital Divide hinders oppressed communities. The reason why I say that is because the majority of the time oppressed communities are the ones that are suffering, the most. With the lack of resources often results in a lack of opportunities.

Digital equity, on the other hand, is ensuring that pretty much all the individuals within each of the communities of the world can’t retain the information in the technology to the greatest extent, as well as being able to examine fool effort within every aspect of the world. The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society defines digital equity within this article. It says digital equity “Digital Equity ensures all individuals and communities have the information technology capacity needed for full participation in our society, democracy, and economy. Digital Equity is necessary for civic and cultural participation, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential services.” (The National Digital Inclusion Alliance, 2016).

Digital Inclusion as the Benton Institue for Broadband & Society Defines it is “the activities necessary to ensure that all individuals and communities, including the most disadvantaged, have access to, and use of, information and communication technologies (ICTs).” (The National Digital Inclusion Alliance, 2016). Then they continue with 5 elements of how its shown in society. overall inclusion digitally is being able to include every community in the individual within the digital room so that they don’t feel left out. A great example is including disabled body citizens in things that able-bodied citizens, roles that they typically won’t receive. Being able to do something as simple as that will give the disabled-bodied community, the feeling of being included in society.

Lastly, How are all of these terms related to one another? Digital divide, digital equity, and digital inclusion are all related because they all have to deal with technology. Being related to technology allows you to be a part of the technological process that it takes for one to have all the resources necessary in order to succeed at what you’re trying to accomplish. And once the dress you must find ways to fix the issue. So in order to fix the issue, we must give everyone an equitable opportunity and equitable resources. The last part of the process is being able to high the resources in opportunities into inclusion. Making sure that everyone is included in the digital process.

References

Huffman, A., & Jauregui, V. C. (2022, August 29). Definitions. National Digital Inclusion Alliance. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://www.digitalinclusion.org/definitions/ 

Murray, S. P., Portman, S. R., King, S. A., & Siefer, A. (n.d.). Digital Equity Act. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://www.digitalequityact.org/ 

Radovanovic, D. (2011, December 14). Digital Divide and social media: Connectivity doesn't end the digital divide, Skills Do. Scientific American Blog Network. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/digital-divide-and-social-media-connectivity-doesnt-end-the-digital-divide-skills-do/ 

What do we mean when we say 'digital equity' and 'Digital Inclusion'? Benton Foundation. (2017, October 30). Retrieved April 24, 2023, from https://www.benton.org/blog/what-do-we-mean-when-we-say-digital-equity-and-digital-inclusion  

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Blog Post #3: The Quick Understanding of Digital Citizenship 🧐

In my terms, digital citizenship is essentially being a person that uses technology for whatever reason they choose. Karen Mossberger, one of the authors of Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society, and Participation, says digital citizens are "those who use the internet regularly and effectively." Sourced by (wiki, 2020). Digital citizenship is the ability to navigate our digital environments in a way that's safe and responsible and to actively and respectfully engage in these spaces. I would probably say that this version of digital citizenship is the positive side.

When you look at the content that was given to us this past week, you see how people like Dr. Josie Ahlquist and Ribble, Bailey, and Ross truly intended to impact citizens. Dr. Josie Ahlquist talks about how K through 12 has become a well-known field for digital citizenship, but on the other hand, higher education needs to catch up with them. Ribble, Bailey, and Ross talk about the nine elements which are “Digital etiquette, Digital communication, Digital Access, Digital literacy, Digital commerce, Digital law, Digital rights and responsibilities, Digital health and wellness, and lastly Digital security”. These nine are very important for the foundation of Digital Citizenship.

How when talking about digital citizenship versus digital literacy, there are differences, but there are also a lot of similarities. Digital citizenship is essentially the core meaning of technology and how you use it digital literacy is how you use that technology. The main similarity that they both have is that they both use technology in their definition, not only that they both use people in their definitions. The only difference is digital literacy is talking about how an individual uses their ability to find, take action, and or communicate information via technology.

Believe that digital citizenship can be fostered and talked to adult learners in various ways. The first way is simply by negative or known social media when giving people the opportunity to educate one another or make it a trend to where people see this as very popular, because who doesn’t want to be hip to the trends? Another way that I feel this could be taught to adult learners is that educators can be implemented this on the mainstream level of education so that they can understand the definition and how I identify it.

References:

https://tpt.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/digital-citizenship-video/things-explained/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_citizen 

https://mediasmarts.ca/digital-media-literacy/general-information/digital-media-literacy-fundamentals/what-digital-citizenship 

https://www.josieahlquist.com/infusing-digital-citizenship-into-higher-education/ 

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🗣 Blog Post #2: Social Media & Participatory Culture

Throughout this paper, I’m going to talk about social media and how it is correlated with participatory culture. Before we even start, what is participatory culture? Participatory culture is defined by new learning online as “a culture where there are low barriers to artistic expression and civic occasions.”. Not only that Henry Jenkins defines participatory culture as a culture where we make media as well as consume it”. He continues to explain participatory culture as a strong support for sharing contact with others, informal, mentorship, members, believing their contributions matter, and care about others, opinions of self, and work.”. What does this mean? This means that participatory culture is a culture that allows people via social media to be them, true selves and create artistic expression through the form of whatever social media platform you choose to use. For example, say you’re on Instagram. Participatory culture would look like people that are participating in contributing value, diverse opinions, and comments on each other's posts, while embracing everyone’s perspective in everyone's fashion. The reason why I say this is an example is because being able to embrace everyone’s perspective and ways of contribution allows us to continue to grow as human beings and the ways of participatory culture.

Let’s talk about how Content is being made by people throughout the world, and why it’s important to create content that is not only artistic and passionate, and that expresses yourself as a person. “Creating content not only involves creativity, but also time, motion, and various forms of capital (social, cultural, and sometimes economic)” (Hinton & Hjorth, 2013). The reason for why I’m bringing this part of the text up is so that we can continue to understand that not everything in social media is a simple, personal blog or a selfie. A lot of things and the majority of the things in social media are planned out, strategized, researched, artistically expressed. Many of the things that we see in social media are things that are either educators or things that are therefore in entertainment mainly.

We are going to talk about different ways on how to practice participatory culture within your life. One way to practice it between cultures in your life is by building a community telling stories and producing media. And being able to do this, will allow you to be distinctive and create something that is very valuable in your life. Another way that you can practice participatory culture is by being informed. What being informed in the participatory culture looks like it is by spreading the word, and then learning about the issues that are taking place. You could also practice participatory culture by connecting with others, and branching out beyond your group by networking yourself. This is very important because being able to network yourself throughout your life, and throughout social media will allow you to explore and be more innovative than what you initially thought. Overall, practicing participatory culture will allow you to become more of the experts in the world and you to become truly adaptive and innovative to what the world has entailed.

To finish up, let’s talk about the main benefits that come with participatory culture. Aside from the abilities to express oneself, what does participatory culture bring to the table in human lives? Its participatory culture is truly everywhere in our human life whether it’s in its Snapchat series where you’re looking at I’m boxing videos or other people sharing contacts or even you attending an event to improve on site appearances. Participatory culture brings benefits of community and other benefits of perspective and gaining knowledge. Overall participatory culture is something that continues to grow within social media, and something that continues to impact us on a daily basis. 

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🖤Blog Post #1

 The research from Common Sense Media in the Pew research center reveals tendencies in information that we already know. The information that we already know is that social media and technology has a heavy influence on the development of children and how they are being influenced in today’s society. Along with that, adults are heavily influenced by their phones, and the way jobs are continuing to look as we move into the future are beginning to look different in the way that they are operating. 

There are many positives to social media within teens and adults. Some of the positives are being able to receive real news through social media. Another positive for social media, especially for teens is being able to follow positive accounts that promote inspiration, growth, and self-improvement. When people do follow these accounts, it gives them a new breath of fresh air in education that you could need to move throughout your day. And the last positive on social media that I would like to talk about is brand equity in building. Social media has become a very big platform for businesses to market and show off products through influencers and various customers that participated in the brand.

Of course, the negative effects that we hear about social media is mainly FOMO, which is the “fear of missing out.” I feel like this is one of the biggest negatives because a lot of us connect to social media initially so that we can either fit in or that we can keep up with trends within the time that we are living in. Another negative effect of social media could be within neurological pathways that you have within your brain and that could be causing a reliant system within the feels like you need a hand on social media to continue to live throughout your life. Some other negative effects of social media that we typically hear about, or experience is isolation, or disconnection from genuine relationships. You can also type in depression and anxiety when it comes to social media due to the different types of experiences that you are feeling. Along with that you could deal with cyber bullying when it comes to social media. 

Overall, there wasn’t much surprising to me with social media and the results that I found. Old is a blog My additional thoughts about social media are very clear and sometimes not clear. The reason why I say that is because social media is sometimes needed depending on where you work and the living situation that you're in. For me, I am typically not an advocate for social media, because social media has a tendency of showing the best in everything when in reality not everything is glamorous. I’m not saying that that is truly bad, but we are human and we tend to judge and overlook that not everything is going to be perfect. Not only that, people tend to get caught up in social media too often and confuse that with a lot of the real world.