Fractura digital e literacia: reequacionar as questões do acesso

The understanding and practices of the production and transmission of information and knowledge, historically bound to the printed world, have been changing as information is even more created and transmitted in electronic channels, making the relationship between the technological processes and the social and cultural practices and institutions more complex. The very same Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that foster development can raise new inequalities, from the different barriers that can be found in the interaction with technologies, hence in accessing information content and services. Commonly referred to as ‘digital divide’, such inequalities are often viewed in a narrow perspective, more concerned with infrastructures, equipments or bandwidth, rather than people’s motivations, skills and patterns of usage access. These are nowadays crucial issues that challenge the traditional concept of literacy.