Researching the digital divide, news, and the media: towards information equity

Abstract

SOMETIME AGO, A BUNCH OF SCHOLARS, some of us with some previous experience as media practitioners as well, decided to start working on a topic, a problem we were, and are, particularly concerned about, so we decided it was time to be concerned with it, too: income inequality and its relationship with news. First, we started an approach to the definition of the topic, and then we focused on how media dealt with such an important issue. Content analysis was the tool we chose to apply to that approach. Soon, we discovered that, on the one hand, inequality has many faces, so it was necessary to address the problem in a better way, considering the multiple inequalities -all of them related, ultimately, with the wealth of people from a multiplicity of perspectives. On the other hand, we needed to focus more precisely on what to do. We obtained a project to help funding this research line. Although the research project (News, networks, and users in the hybrid media system. Transformation of media industries and the news in the post-industrial era (RTI2018-095775-B-C43) had a broader scope, and we were just part of a larger team, our particular, beloved research line could have a place in it, so from 2019 to the end of 2022 we have been working on the many aspects of the inequal access to news, and the treatment that media do on the topic. This is a report which gathers and summarises some findings and results we have been able, so far, to obtain by ourselves. These are some pages in which we recognise our limitations, which encourages us to work harder in the next times, maybe more slowly than we would like, but with some security as well. This is an essay which shows our ideas and reflections on the topic. It has more questions than answers –we hope there are some of the second, though. More than this: we wanted to have for ourselves, and offer everyone interested in it, a state of the art and, most especially, a proposal for future research. So, without further ado: this is it.