Workshop: Digital Literacies and Digital Inclusion in Contemporary Brazil

The public and academic debates on the concepts of digital inclusion and digital literacy historically emerge reactively, linked to immediate solutions to problems that are presented as urgent, namely: the loss of job opportunities in face of the growing digitalization of the workplace; and the epidemic of misinformation derived from a fragmentation of the informational ecosystem. Based on this observation, this presentation will parallel the debates around an amplified concept of digital inclusion, which contemplates the importance of going beyond the computer science teaching policies for the use of specific software, also encompassing education for an autonomous appropriation of technologies and computers; and why the notion ​​digital literacy should not be restricted to teaching users to do consistent searches on the internet or to protect their privacy individually, but also have to go towards a broad understanding of the role of software algorithms and architectures in the production and reproduction of behaviours. To these dimensions, I also argue that it is necessary to reinsert the understanding of the political economy of the digital world as one of the necessary skills for digital literacy. New ways of extracting value on the activity of individuals have emerged in the context of the economic rise of large digital platforms. The social pressure to have digitally included and digitally literate individuals included is also linked to the formation of a contingent involved in the production of value to be extracted by the Big Techs. Understanding these processes is essential for individuals and groups to be able to put themselves in a more sovereign and less asymmetric position in the digital world.

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