The interface between digital democracy and public policy: The challenges of digital inclusion in Brazil

This paper discusses the relationship among public policies, digital democracy and digital inclusion in Brazil as part of the political project against social inequalities during the Lula government. Internet access, instructional formation for the socio-cognitive network use, appropriation of ICTs and broadband are important pieces of achieving a social justice in line with digital democracy. This refers to the possibilities of providing the conditions that an open technology in regard with its purposes is made available to different people. Our object of analysis is to discuss the interface between distributive policies and actions of recognition of social and cultural differences, as pillars of the battle against the digital divide in the context of GESAC’s Digital Inclusion Project integrated to the Policy for Science and Technology in Brazil. It discusses the advances and limitations of the process of digital inclusion in the country from three key variables: Brazilian citizens’ access to instructional training; to computers and broadband and to appropriation of technologies. Minority communities are the target of public policy of digital inclusion and are the most exposed to the «fracture numérique» as polarization phenomenon with respect to the universal dimension called “information society.” In Brazil we are faced with populations exposed to social injustices due to social or/and ethnic-racial origins, which is reflected in their access to material and symbolic goods. Such injustices transform differences in inequalities, which results in the stratification of access and appropriation of ICTs. The basis for the consolidation of a Science and Technology  Policy in the country that not only relates to access of material resources but also to capacity-building of the telecenter user in dealing with new tools and specific ICTs languages. The following methodological resources are used: document analysis, questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and focus groups with residents from five regions of Brazil.