International investment law is designed to encourage the movement of capital toward optimally productive uses, thus generating economic gains and fostering development. At the same time, treaty-based protections of foreign investors can restrict host governments’ ability to pass rules that negatively impact on foreign investments even when such rules are for socially desirable goals such as poverty reduction. Applied to the question of new technologies, this framework theoretically leaves access to and utilization of new technologies between the technology-pulling impact of investment protections and the equity-hindering impacts of regulatory measures to reduce poverty in all its forms. Does the practice of international investment law dispute resolution indicate that this tension is resolved in favor of technology investors or in favor of equality-enhancing measures?

This chapter examines the various aspects of the digital divide and the provisions of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that contain states’ promises on the relationship to promote access to new technologies as a way of reducing poverty. It then looks at several early investment disputes that have arisen out of new technology investments in order to draw conclusions about whether investment protections help bridge the divide or exacerbate it. The result is more ambiguous than expected.

This chapter explores the systemic inequalities exacerbated by unequal access to digital technologies, known as the digital divide. This divide disproportionately affects vulnerable populations such as women, older people, and rural communities, limiting their access to services, education, and opportunities. The chapter investigates the digital divide’s root causes, including socio-economic disparities, geographic isolation, cultural and language barriers, technological gaps, and insufficient policy interventions. It emphasises the human rights implications of this divide, such as restricted access to education, healthcare, and democratic participation. It also examines international and regional policy responses, noting their shortcomings in addressing the issue comprehensively. The chapter concludes by emphasising the urgent need for inclusive policies, targeted interventions, and international cooperation to bridge the digital divide and ensure that digitalisation benefits all, especially those most at risk of exclusion.

This chapter examines the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of digital health care. That is, we study the effect of the pandemic shock and subsequent COVID-19 policies on the rise of digital health solutions and technologies with a focus on healthcare settings. Second, we examine how behavioural economics theories critically evaluate the uptake and understand key changes in delivery and healthcare utilisation. Third, we develop behaviourally feasible policy proposals that could contribute to increased uptake of digital health solutions and technologies within the National Health Service, for providers and patients going forward.

Broadband infrastructure is the prerequisite that enables people to meaningfully participate in the data-driven economy, as well as to put to good use the “beauty” of datafication. Developing countries and LDCs need FDI to build their digital infrastructures. However, the economic benefit of the GATS Mode 3 market access commitments in the telecommunications sector has never been realized in many states. In this context, from Mexico – Telecom to Brazil – Taxation, the mere fact that the responding parties must have attempted to stretch the scope of the “universal services” or “public morals” to justify their digital inclusion policies within the WTO indicates that the interplay between international economic law and digital inequality invites further reflection. The pressing task for trade negotiators is to find the common ground necessary to balance digital trade liberalization and development needs, rather than creating another “Digital ‘Haves’ Trade Agreement.” One policy direction discussed in Chapter 1 is to impose obligations on big tech companies to contribute their fair share to universal service funds needed for infrastructure upgrades. Such a reform, of course, should be implemented in a transparent, nondiscriminatory, and competitively neutral manner, as required by the Telecom Reference Paper.

The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted the educational and social lives of millions of children across the globe. Many governments attempted to curb the spread of the virus by closing schools or allowing them to remain open only for certain students, necessitating a rapid adjustment to remote home learning for schools and families. In the UK, this led to huge variability in the provision of educational materials, in children’s engagement, and in parents’ capacity to support home learning. This chapter describes the impacts of the school closures on families’ and students’ educational and socioemotional development.

The slow development of telepsychiatry in the pre-Covid-19 world, mainly driven by the increases in mobile devices, intergenerational changes and the digital divide is described. The dramatic changes in psychiatric practice following the Covid-19 pandemic are documented, with case histories from five countries as well as extensive descriptions of changes in the United States. Finally, lessons learned from the move to telepsychiatry, including changes to psychiatric practice involving hybrid care, the use of virtual home visits and asynchronous consultations, are summarised as directions for future psychiatric practice.

1 Introduction

2 Defining an Evolving Divide

3 The Meaning of “Access” Evolves

4 Theorizing the Digital Divide

5 Historical Perspective

6 Government Initiatives

  6.1 Public and Private Initiatives

  6.2 K-12 Research in the United States

  6.3 Lack of Permission to Access Technology

  6.4 Differences between Home and School

  6.5 School Policies and Procedures Restrict Use

  6.6 The Power of Teachers on Student Outcomes

7 The Global K-12 Digital Divide

  7.1 The Divide between Developed and Developing Countries

  7.2 Within-Country Digital Divides

8 The Divide for South Africa’s Students

9 The Future of the Divide

In the space of a single generation, social media have transformed how billions of people make friends, build communities, and share knowledge. However, approaches that suggest harm occurs based solely on time spent using social media disguise this everyday reality. In response, this chapter points toward the importance of understanding who uses social media in daily life, why, and how. While we have more data than ever to help us explore the impacts of new technologies, including social media, everyday experiences require description alongside careful theorizing about the mechanisms that might cause benefits or harms. This collectively shifts research priorities towards applied applications that can mitigate problems, injustices, and inequalities that social media and other digital cultures can foster.

While a shift to virtual courts has been lauded by technological enthusiasts and reformers for decades, little research has examined how this technological change may affect vulnerable unrepresented persons and low-income people in the United States on the “have not” side of the digital divide. In this Chapter, we cast light on how virtual proceedings unfold for low-income unrepresented persons in the everyday. It is important to do so. To date, much of the conversation has lauded Zoom court proceedings as the future of civil justice, centering this praise on idealized forms of online proceedings and their conveniences, without interrogating the impact of the precarity that low-income people contend with or persistent digital divides. In marked departure, we examine how these new technologies affect the experiences of low-income unrepresented persons who encounter, and contend with, adversities within virtual court proceedings. We examine how these new technologies reconfigure the features, affordances, and barriers present within the civil justice system, and the impact of these new technologies on the psychology of judges, lawyers, and unrepresented persons, as well as the impact of these new technologies on the meaning of the judicial role and on a person’s unrepresented status.

Faith in technology as a way to narrow the civil justice gap has steadily grown alongside an expanding menu of websites offering legal guides, document assembly tools, and case management systems. Yet little is known about the supply and demand of legal help on the internet. This chapter mounts a first-of-its-kind effort to fill that gap by measuring website traffic across the mix of commercial, court-linked, and public interest websites that vie for eyeballs online. Commercial sites, it turns out, dominate over the more limited ecosystem of court-linked and public interest online resources, and yet commercial sites often engage in questionable practices, including the baiting of users with incomplete information and then charging for more. Search engine algorithms likely bolster that dominance. Policy implications abound for a new generation of A2J technologies focused on making people’s legal journeys less burdensome and more effective. What role should search engines play to promote access to quality legal information? Could they, or should they, privilege trustworthy sources? Might there be scope for public-private partnerships, or even a regulatory role, to ensure that online searches return trustworthy and actionable legal information?

Media and communication influence, shape, and change our societies. Therefore, this first chapter aims to explain the implications of digital communication for our societies and the relationship between media, technology, and society. The chapter introduces the concept of society from a sociological perspective and explains how societies change because of the effects technological developments have on them, and vice versa. It illustrates this interplay with the example of digital divides.

In order to explain the significance and changes of public communication in a digital society, the chapters zooms in on the media landscape and explicates the difference between new media and old (or traditional) media. It pays particular attention to the ideas of Marshall McLuhan, as his work remains a cornerstone when studying the relationship between media, technology, and society. The chapter then outlines the discipline of media linguistics and explains how media linguistics can help to make digital media and digital communication more tangible. It focuses on three key terms crucial for understanding public digital communication: multimodality, media convergence, and mediatization.