Social support for digital inclusion of women in South African townships
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Date
2022
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
Despite strong evidence of its critical role in facilitating digital inclusion, social support – the
emotional, instrumental and informational aid received from support networks to assist an individual’s use of digital technologies – remains an unexplored area of research in low-resourced
South African communities. By drawing on the ‘Typology of digital social support’ framework,
this paper presents rich insights into the intricacies of the underlying motivations, behaviour and
help-seeking processes in the digital engagement of women in South African townships. The
findings show that the women had the strong social embeddedness necessary for digital support
and relied on a range of nuanced and cross-cutting support-seeking strategies, including formal
and particularly informal support channels and, to a lesser extent, self-learning.
This qualitative phenomenological study relies on in-depth individual interviews with a small
sample of women in three South African townships. In revealing potential disparities between
social support in developed and developing regions, the study affirms the need to prioritise
further South African research and the development of theoretical frameworks grounded in local
realities.
Description
Keywords
Social support, Digital inclusion, Women, Information Technology Communication, South Africa
Citation
Keating, C. et al. (2022). Social support for digital inclusion of women in South African townships. Telematics and Informatics, 75, 101893. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2022.101893