The digital transformation has been presented and celebrated as a democratising force. However, in recent years, we have entered an era of great disappointment due to broken promises from the early days of the internet. Rather than opening up new worlds and breaking down walls, we are witnessing the rise of inequalities and the decline of democratic spaces. How can this paradox be explained?
Understanding and Addressing Digital Inequalities, co-edited by Danielle Borges, Roberta Carlini, Leonardo Mazzoni and Natalia Menéndez González, brings together 25 contributions, presented and discussed at the scientific conference on digital democracy organised by the Centre for a Digital Society and the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom at the EUI’s Robert Schuman Centre in November 2025. The result is a collective working paper, examining three dimensions of inequalities produced or reinforced by technology: economic, social and political. And the policy tools to address them.
When examining differences between individuals, inequality in the digital realm has traditionally been framed as the ‘digital divide’, with an initial focus on the ability to access the internet. Yet digital inequalities are far more complex. They extend beyond access, individual skills and operational capabilities, shaping people’s ability to exercise agency in different areas of their lives, from work and economic opportunities to civic participation.
This broader understanding of the digital divide calls for an approach that looks beyond economic inequalities alone. It also requires consideration of the wider societal implications of digital technologies and their impact on the functioning of the public sphere.
The interdisciplinary conference adopted this comprehensive perspective, addressing what remains a largely siloed debate in academia, and exploring policy tools that could help bridge digital inequalities and strengthen the democratic potential of digital technologies. Now, a selection of 25 of the 52 papers presented at the conference offers insights into issues ranging from the uneven effects of algorithmic bias on educational opportunities to how smartphone use, measured through screen time and app-level data, reflects and reinforces existing social and occupational divides.
“We are shifting from viewing digital engagement as just an individual using a device, to seeing it as interacting with embedded digital systems— like AI, IoT, or smart cities. These systems are less visible, and inequality is less about pressing the right buttons or having the right skills and more about power, design, data bias, and how systems shape our lives.”, noted Professor Ellen Helsper (London School of Economics and Political Science), who delivered the keynote lecture at the scientific conference ‘Understanding and addressing digital inequalities’.
The contributions to the e-book reflect this shift. The first section focuses on markets, labour and redistribution in the digital economy (with a focus on the firm level, consumption and income dynamics, as well as on the role of competition policy).
Secondly, the social consequences of the information divide are tackled, looking at access to the news, vulnerability to disinformation, fairness in the media markets, and the infrastructural divide.
The third part is dedicated to the legal and institutional challenges of AI governance and its impact on constitutional systems, including regulatory approaches to address algorithmic inequalities and new vulnerabilities.
As the editors point out, digitalisation is often shaped by existing inequalities and can, in turn, reinforce them. “We hope this publication will encourage further multidisciplinary and intersectional research on a topic of growing scientific and social interest, while helping to bring the urgency of tackling inequalities in our society into the policy debate.,” concluded Part-time Assistant Professor Roberta Carlini.
Understanding and addressing digital inequalities, co-edited by Danielle Borges, Roberta Carlini, Leonardo Mazzoni and Natalia Menéndez González, can be accessed on Cadmus, the European University Institute’s research repository.