[csaa-forum] TODAY: Swinburne Institute for Social Research - Seminar Series, Circumstance Matters: digital access and affordability for people experiencing homelessness, Justine Humphry, University of Western Sydney

[Cesar Albarran Torres]

Swinburne Institute for Social Research - Seminar Series

Presenter: Justine Humphry, University of Western Sydney

Title: Circumstance Matters: digital access and affordability for people experiencing homelessness

Date: Thursday, 27 November 2014

Time: 2:00-3:30pm

Venue: EN102

Access to and affordability of digital technology for vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians is an ongoing concern. This talk reports on new research on the access and use of mobile and internet services by people experiencing homelessness and engages with key issues of digital exclusion in the context of a society-wide shift in connectivity and the reform of a wide range of public and commercial services around these changes. The research, funded by the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) and carried out in early 2014, included 95 surveys and interviews with clients of specialist homelessness services in Melbourne and Sydney. The research revealed that for this group there is the potential for greater benefit and harm that comes with the integration of digital technology into everyday sociality and service delivery. The talk argues for the need to recognise the ways that life situations and circumstances of hardship, such as homelessness, factor into the patterns of mobile and internet connectivity, creating unique issues of digital access and equity. The talk makes recommendations to mobile providers and government and support agencies to improve on and develop targeted communication policies and services.

Justine Humphry is a Lecturer in Cultural and Social Analysis at the University of Western Sydney and previously was a Research Fellow and Lecturer in the Digital Cultures Program in the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Sydney. She has taught media and communications, cultural studies and sociology of media and researches and writes about mobile media and digital inclusion, digital service reform, new media discourse and professional cultures. Justine is the author of the recently published: Homeless and Connected: mobile phones and the internet in the lives of homeless Australians, available at https://accan.org.au/grants/completed-grants/619-homeless-and-connected.






-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.cdu.edu.au/pipermail/csaa-forum/attachments/20141126/fa608edc/attachment.html