Digital Inclusion

DIGITAL INCLUSION is a book about life in digital societies. Taking a Scandinavian outlook, it zooms in on everyday experiences of public sector digitalization in some of the world’s most digitalized countries. Grounded in studies of how exclusionary effects of digitalization are dealt with in local circumstances, the book offers insight into aspects of the digital transformation that are mostly invisible. 

Over the course of seven chapters, the book gives examples of how relatives help each other get access to online services. It emphasizes the broad range of situations in which digital support takes place, including by volunteers and professionals in the front line of the public sector. An overview of political digitalization strategies in Scandinavia frames the discussion of how to move towards consideration of citizen values and interests. It presents concepts and methods to move away from the narrow idea of the citizen as a ‘user’ thereby paving the way for better support of human-technology interaction and increasing public engagement in digital society decision making. 

Digital Inclusion is a contribution to current attempts at making digitalization serve the public better. It is written for policy makers and managers in the public sector but equally suited for citizens with a desire to understand society’s digital transformation and its everyday consequences and possibilities. 

Brit Ross Winthereik is professor of Human-Centered Digitalization in the Division of Technology & Business Studies at the Dept. of Technology, Management and Economics at the Technical University of Denmark. 

Margunn Aanestad is professor of Information Systems at the University of Oslo, Norway and an affiliated Professor at the Department of Informatics the University of Agder, Norway. 

Åsa Mäkitalo is professor of Education at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden and Professor II at the Department of Education at the University of Oslo, Norway.