Distinzioni digitali. L'appropriazione di internet tra gli adolescenti e le disuguaglianze sociali

The research explores how teenagers from different social classes use and give meaning to the internet in their everyday life. The most common representations of youth’s relationship with information and communication technologies focus on the generational distinctiveness (for instance the expression “digital native”) and hide the relevance of social stratification. On the contrary socio-economic and cultural conditions contribute to differentiate teenagers’ relationship with internet and digital media. For such a reason the present work investigates how social background shapes teenagers’ internet use, attitudes and meaning-making practices. It also explores in which circumstances it is possible to identify digital inequalities. The first chapter presents a review of the literature on digital inequalities among teenagers. A particular emphasis is placed on research using qualitative approaches and investigating how dispositions and meanings are constructed within particular socio-cultural contexts. The second chapter illustrates the theoretical perspective. Given that parents’ key role is mostly overlooked in digital inequalities research, this chapter discusses the relevance of the theory of socialization and parental mediation. The third chapter describes the main references used for developing the methodology of the thesis. It presents a brief overview of the methodological underpinnings of audiences studies, domestication theory and science and technology studies in order to outline the notion of “appropriation”: the latter concept proved to be a helpful tool in order to overcome a solely descriptive analysis and to produce a contextualized account of digital inequalities. The fourth chapter gives an account of the research design, methods, samples and procedure of the analysis. The chapters that go from fifth to nine discuss the outcomes of the analysis. The fifth chapter illustrates the analysis of a survey administrated in spring 2012 to a representative sample of Lombardy second year secondary students (n. 2327) designed and implemented with other colleagues at the Department of Sociology and Social Research with the support of Lombardy Region and the Lombardy Office of Education. Chapters six to nine are dedicated to the qualitative results. They give an account of the four patterns of internet appropriation obtained through the analysis of 53 semi-structures interviews conducted with teenagers of different social classes (organized by parents’ professional occupation in: upper middle class, lower middle class, working class). Even if extremely diverse, the patterns present a coherent logic according to parents role as social agents. Teenagers from upper class families draw heavily from their parents discourses and examples to define their relationship with digital media. On the other side, adolescents with a working class background draw only but vastly on their peers. Overall the results show that socio-economic status and cultural background contribute to define teenagers’ internet appropriation through parental socialization. However, there is not a linear causality between social inequalities and internet use. Processes of reproduction, based on the possession of cultural capital coexist with tendencies of “disalignment” in the expected relationship between social status and media use. The relevance of these findings for the debate on digital inequalities among youth is discussed in the final chapter.