From social to digital inequalities: The use of new media by the poor in Eskisehir, Turkey

Abstract

This study focuses on the problem of digital inequalities and examines how having new media and the ability to use it are affected by age, gender, and socio-economic status over a sample of individuals living in Eskisehir where high levels of social deprivation can be found. This mixed-design study, based its data 415 questionnaires and 39 semi-structured interviews and was conducted in Eskisehir's Emek, Gundogdu, and Sevinc neighborhoods, where most residents experience poverty. Quantitative methods are highly important in terms of revealing the accessibility and ownership aspects of the issue in studies on digital inequality. The study will attempt to use qualitative data to complete the general framework drawn by the quantitative data and present how social inequalities are reflect in online attitudes within the sample of the poor. Thus, the study aims to contribute to the literature on digital inequalities both in terms of methodology and sample. The results of the study show that second-level and third-level digital inequalities are both feed by inequalities in offline life and also feed them. New media play an important role in overcoming the walls built by low educational levels and economic constraints. On the other hand, socio-economic status affects thoughts about digital media, the skills and practices of using them, and the quality of the benefits gained by using them. This sample includes people who abandoned education at a very early age, and in this sample, marriage at a young age is common and poverty prevails, with an evident relationship existing between digital inequalities and social origin.