Banca de DEFESA: LETÍCIA PEREIRA DE ALCÂNTARA

ONLINE INEQUALITIES AS AN OBSTACLE TO DIGITAL DEMOCRACY: The Case of the Portal e-Cidadania

Digital inequalities; digital democracy; Internet; digital skills 

The aim of the dissertation is to understand how digital inequalities – understood as the different ways that people use the internet – influence online political participation. The study analyzes the sociodemographic profile of users of the e-Cidadania portal, from the Federal Senate, and infers an index of their digital skills. Data were collected through a questionnaire sent by email to all proponents of any bill idea through the portal. The application of the questionnaire was possible due to cooperation between the Federal Senate and the National Institute of Digital Technology and Democracy (INCT.DD). From the responses of 8878 proponents, the survey found a profile of respondents made up of men (81%), white (57%), with higher education (72%) and most with family income corresponding to the middle and upper social classes. A sociodemographic profile that is not very diverse, which does not reflect the Brazilian population. The digital skills of these users, considered a fundamental resource for contemporary society, are high in communication and entertainment activities (-0.136), but very incipient in the information (-0.068), strategic (-0.077) and digital activism areas ( 0.219), according to the index, the lower the benchmark, the greater the skill. From factor analysis, it was possible to conclude that personal and positional categories, such as income, education and employment, influence the resources available for access and will influence the results of using digital democracy tools such as e-Cidadania. The results of this work are intended to be useful to the field we call Digital Democracy, while providing subsidies both for academic research and for the design of public policies aimed at political and social inclusion through digital initiatives. Especially, in a historic moment of great effort to digitize the functioning of the State and the relationship between society and the different institutions. Therefore, it is essential to properly investigate the possible losses for those who do not have the necessary resources. The innovation of democracy, despite being beneficial for its maturation, cannot come at the cost of lowering the status of citizen for some parts of the population, especially those who are already the preferred target of other types of exclusion.