Search results

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that, to build a digital sustainable society, core terminal and instrumental values of sustainability and sustainable development should be followed across different worldviews, and in the formulation of policies or other initiatives form private and public stakeholders. These values are normative, they support the coordination of efforts of different stakeholders and can serve as guidelines for driving the development trajectory of technologies contributing to a sustainable society.

This conceptual paper defines digital sustainability from the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development. From the Rio Process (1992), through the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), this paper analyzes and theoretically discusses the intersection between digital aspects of human life and wider sustainability concerns for humanity and the planet. Technologies and digital processes are functional catalysts to the achievement of the UN 2030 SDGs and crucial for individuals’ everyday life, but their adoptions is also conditional to a variety of conflicting worldviews.

This paper focused on the role of digital technologies in innovation and transformation and their impact on the environment, individuals, society and economy, from a theoretical point of view. Digital technologies have changed the way in which people communicate, study, work, interact and even look for friends, relationships and love. It is, therefore, important to reflect upon the impact that this revolution would have on the individuals and on the wider socio-economic, political and environment context. In this vein, this paper attempted to reflect on the sustainability of this revolution, by sketching the concept of digital sustainability drawing upon the concept of sustainability.

Digital sustainability – like sustainability – relies on three universal values: equality, harmony, self-determination. In fact, to be sustainable, the use of digital technologies should be led by the equality value, namely, the need to not compromise the future generations, both in terms of exploitation of natural resources to produce them and in terms of to create and nor reduce job opportunities for future generations. Second, digital technologies might help tackling both the ecological and social crises through a universal collaboration according to the harmony’s value. Finally, the third value for digital sustainability is self-determination. It applies to individuals and social formations and it refers to the capability of being in control of your destiny.

This paper aims to look at shifts in internet-related content and services economies, from audience labour economies to Web 2.0 user-generated content, and the emerging model of user computing power utilisation, powered by blockchain technologies. The authors look at and test three models of user computing power utilisation based on distributed computing (Coinhive, Cryptotab and Gridcoin) two of which use cryptocurrency mining through distributed pool mining techniques, while the third is based on distributed computing of calculations for scientific research. The three models promise benefits to their users, which the authors discuss throughout the paper, studying how they interplay with the three levels of the digital divide.

The goal of this article is twofold as follows: first to discuss how using the mining hype may reduce digital inequalities, and secondly to demonstrate how these services offer a new business model based on value rewarding in exchange for computational power, which would allow more online opportunities for people, and thus reduce digital inequalities. Finally, this contribution discusses and proposes a method for a fair revenue model for content and online service providers that uses user device computing resources or computational power, rather than their data and attention. The method is represented by a model that allows for consensual use of user computing resources in exchange for accessing content and using software tools and services, acting essentially as an alternative online business model.

Allowing users to convert their devices’ computational power into value, whether through access to services or content or receiving cryptocurrency and payments in return for providing services or content or direct computational powers, contributes to bridging digital divides, even at fairly small levels. Secondly, the advent of blockchain technologies is shifting power relations between end-users and content developers and service providers and is a necessity for the decentralisation of internet and internet services.

The article studies the effect of services that rely on distributed computing and mining on digital inequalities, by looking at three different case studies – Coinhive, Gridcoin and Cryptotab – that promise to provide value in return for using computing resources. The article discusses how these services may reduce digital inequalities by affecting the three levels of the digital divide, namely, access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) (first level), skills and motivations in using ICTs (second level) and capacities in using ICTs to get concrete benefits (third level).

This paper contributes to the literature by proposing an analysis of digital inequalities in Russia that focuses on two aspects hitherto under explored: the interregionality (by comparing and contrasting eight federal districts) and the multidimensionality of digital inequalities (by taking into account the three levels of digital divide). Therefore, the aim is to address the phenomenon of digital divide in Russia by discussing the three levels of the digital divide (access / skills / benefits) in a comparative and interregional perspective.

This paper uses secondary data for its analysis, including both national (e.g. the total number of daily Internet users in Russia) and more regionalized data (related to particular federal districts of Russia). The choice of data sources was determined by an attempt to provide a detailed and multifaceted coverage of all three levels of the digital divide in Russia, which is not limited to the access problem only. For this purpose, we are using and re-elaborating various reports about the development of the Internet and ICTs in Russia prepared by national and international organizations to cover the first level of the digital divide. To shed light upon the second and third levels of the digital divide, we discuss digital literacy report (2018), the report on Internet openness index of Russian regions (2017) and the report on the digital life index of the Russian regions (2016). Finally, in the attempt to map out the key directions of the state policy aimed at decreasing digital inequality in Russia, on both federal and regional levels, we analyze the most important regional and national policy measures to foster digitalization such as the digital Russia program, the digital government program and the program of eliminating digital inequality in Russia.

We consider this study to be both a first exploration and a baseline of the three level digital divides in Russia. The paper shows how the level of socioeconomic development of the federal districts, as well as a number of objective factors (distance/isolation, urbanization level, availability of infrastructure and costs for building new infrastructure, etc.) have impact upon digitalization of the regions. As a result, several federal districts of Russia (Central, Northwestern, and, in a number of cases, Ural and Volga federal districts) more often than others take leading positions in rankings, in terms of degree of Internet penetration, audience numbers, use of e-services, etc. This correlation, however, is not universal as we will show, and some regions lacking behind in terms of access can be booming in terms of digital literacy or other factors, like it happened with the Far Eastern Federal district for example. All in all, our research showed that digital inequality in Russia is still on place and will require more time for complete elimination, even though current state and public initiatives are being actively developed.

This paper will bring to light meaningful insights into the three levels of digital divides in Russia. Based on a multilevel (three levels of digital divide) and multi-sectional approach (the interplay of different types of inequalities), this paper contributed to overall better understanding of the digital inequalities phenomenon in Russia. It also allowed for a comparative interregional perspective, which has been missing in most papers on digital inequalities in Russia so far.

This paper investigates both similarities and differences between two global threats represented by climate change (CC) and Covid-19 (CV). This will help understand the reasons behind the recognition of the CV as a pandemic that requires global efforts, whereas efforts to tackle climate change still lack such urgency. This paper aims to answer to the following questions: What are the elements that make CV restrictions acceptable by both the public and policymakers? and What are the elements that make CC restrictions not acceptable?

This paper analyses the situation reports released by the World Health Organisation between the 11th of March (declaration of pandemic) and the 22nd of April, and their associated documents such as the Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan (WHO), the Risk Communication and Community Engagement Action Plan (WHO) and its updated version (WHO) and the Handbook for public health capacity-building (WHO). The analysis ends one week after President Trump’s announcement to suspend US funding to WHO (Fedor and Manson, 2020) and his support to public demonstrations against restrictions.

The application of the second stage of the “Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication” model identifies five lessons that can be learned from this comparison. These relate to the necessity to simultaneously warn (about the severity of a threat) and reassure (by suggesting specific courses of action) the public; the need for multilevel collaboration that integrates collective and individual actions; the capacity to present cohesive messages to the public; the risk of politicisation and commodification of the issue that might undermine global efforts to tackle the threat; and the capacity to trigger individual responses through the promotion of self-efficacy.

This paper identifies both similarities and differences between CC and CV managements to understand why the two threats are perceived and tackled in different ways. The analysis of official documents released by both the World Health Organisation and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate CV outbreak as a crisis, whereas climate change is still anchored to the status of a future-oriented risk.