A report said that local councils had a crucial role to play in helping 8.43 million people combat digital exclusion and embrace the internet.
Source: Hannah Goraya and Ann Light, Digital Inclusion in South Yorkshire, Sheffield Hallam University
Links: Report | Sheffield Hallam press release
Date: 2011-Dec
A briefing paper highlighted evidence of a growing 'digital underclass'. Under government plans to make public services 'digital by default' those who needed access to services most were the least likely to use them – even when access was available.
Source: Ellen Helsper, The Emergence of a Digital Underclass: Digital policies in the UK and evidence for inclusion, Media Policy Brief 3, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science
Links: Briefing
Date: 2011-Oct
A report examined the emergence of 'next generation users' who were developing a new pattern of internet use, accessing the internet from multiple locations and devices.
Source: William Dutton and Grant Blank, Next Generation Users: The internet in Britain, Oxford Internet Institute (University of Oxford)
Links: Report
Date: 2011-Oct
A new book examined the impact of online technology on the work and lifestyles of professional employees. New media technologies encouraged and exacerbated a tendency among salaried professionals to put work at the heart of daily concerns, often at the expense of other sources of intimacy and fulfilment.
Source: Melissa Gregg, Work's Intimacy, Polity Press
Links: Summary
Date: 2011-Aug
A report examined how social media were being used by social service users and carers, in the context of personalization and self-directed support.
Source: Shirley Ayres, The Future for Personalisation? Service users, carers and digital engagement, Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services
Links: Report
Date: 2011-Aug
A report by a committee of MPs said that the government's over-reliance on large contractors for its information technology needs, combined with a lack of in-house skills, was a 'recipe for rip-offs'.
Source: Government and IT – 'A Recipe for Rip-Offs': Time for a new approach, Twelfth Report (Session 2010-12), HC 715, House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | Evidence | Additional written evidence | IFG press release | BBC report | Guardian report | Public Finance report
Date: 2011-Jul
An employers' organization identified solutions to a series of challenges that the government needed to overcome in order to ensure that information technology played a 'transformative' role in public service delivery.
Source: System Reset: Transforming public services through IT, Confederation of British Industry
Links: Report
Date: 2011-Jul
A study examined the risks that vulnerable young people, excluded from schools and being taught in pupil referral units, encountered online and through their mobile phones.
Source: Stephen Carrick-Davies, Munch Poke Ping! Vulnerable young people, social media and e-safety, Training and Development Agency
Links: Report | Guardian report
Date: 2011-Jul
A report by a committee of MPs welcomed the direction and principles of the coalition government's new strategy for information and communications technology: but it said that the strategy lacked quantitative targets, or a baseline of existing performance, which would make it difficult to measure success.
Source: Information and Communications Technology in Government, Fortieth Report (Session 2010-12), HC 1050, House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | Public Finance report
Date: 2011-Jul
A manifesto said that internet access should play a key role in successful ageing and in helping to build links 'across generations and geographies' for older people.
Source: Getting On: A manifesto for older people in a networked nation, Race Online 2012
Links: Manifesto
Date: 2011-Jun
A report said that people should increasingly be expected to make use of cheaper 'digital channels' to access public services, including tax payments and benefit claims.
Source: Choosing Fewer Channels: Public service channel options in an age of austerity, Deloitte & Touche LLP
Links: Report | Deloitte and Touche press release
Date: 2011-Apr
An article examined the social distribution of access to, and uptake of, information/communications technology, and explored key factors restricting the digital engagement of young people from lower-income households and communities. Strategies to bridge digital divisions needed to pay more attention to the social rather than technological barriers that inhibited communications inclusion.
Source: Stephen Sinclair and Glen Bramley, 'Beyond virtual inclusion – communications inclusion and digital divisions', Social Policy and Society, Volume 10 Issue 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-Jan