Society

The Society perspective is exploring the wider relationships within which the end user of SiDE's digital technologies (those generally regarded as being socially excluded) are situated. The use of technology takes place in social contexts and our focus needs to take account of the social, institutional and spatial contexts within which these users live their lives. We are focusing on the impacts of technology led initiatives on social inclusion, how end users can be involved in the research process and how outcomes can be measured. Our work mainly focuses on the (disadvantaged) young and the elderly and we work with other SiDE activities and perspectives, as well as other interested academics in pursuing our research. We also seek to build close and long-term relationships with external organisations who share our interests, both to learn from these organisations and to affect policy and practice. A number of cross cutting themes have emerged in the early stages of our research and we will build on these in the coming years, these include: the importance of institutions and ‘eco-groups’ as facilitators of, but also as barriers to, social and digital inclusion; the role of digital technologies in social innovation; the affordances of digital technologies to support vernacular creativity and social and democratic engagement; and the implications of digital technologies for our understanding of community.