Understanding and Alleviating Inequalities in Digital News Consumption

Introduction

This project’s vision is to understand and develop strategies to mitigate inequalities in digital news consumption, the acquisition of political knowledge, and vulnerability to misinformation. While inequalities in digital news access have been lowered with very high levels of internet access in many countries, there are indications that inequalities in digital news use and the benefits of being exposed to it, like the acquisition of political knowledge, are increasing.

Background

Academic literature has been instrumental in describing how digital intermediaries (e.g., social media or search engines) and different modes (mobile devices) have changed the way people consume news. However, little attention has been given to how these changes manifest against the backdrop of pre-existing social inequalities in news use and the acquisition of political information.

Objectives

Thus, the project will:

1. Reliably identify digital inequalities in news use, the acquisition of political knowledge, and vulnerability to online misinformation in countries of the Global North and the Global South.
2. Focus on long-standing informational inequalities related to social class, gender, and age.
3. Examine the role of new information technologies like digital intermediaries and mobile devices.
4. Explore the ways that parts of the population navigate and face disadvantages in a complex digital media environment.
5. For the first time, test digital public health style interventions that could reduce inequalities in digital news use, political knowledge, and exposure to as well as belief in online misinformation.

Methodology

To achieve these objectives, this project will employ a novel set of methods. Overall, this project will be the first to examine and find ways to alleviate inequalities in digital news use, using a holistic mixed-methods approach in a Global North/South comparative framework.