DiSTO UK, initiated in 2014, was part of the original projects in collaboration with DiSTO Netherlands. Their main objective was the development of theoretically informed measures that can be used to explain how people use the internet and what the benefits might be. To achieve this, the projects included:

• A systematic review of the literature to develop measurement scales
• Cognitive interviews in the UK (and the Netherlands) to refine the measurement scales (N=30)
• Online survey pilot tests of the instrument in the UK and in the Netherlands with a representative sample of internet users to test the internal validity of the scales (N=300)
• A full nationally representative survey of internet users in the Netherlands to test the scales for both internal and external validity of the scales

 Impact

• The measures have fed into surveys delivered by World Internet Project, Global Kids and Mobile Kids Online. Moreover, they were developed and adapted in close collaboration with the other partners on other DiSTO survey projects
• The conceptual model informed the Skills and Use Scale Development that is used by ITU (International telecommunications Union), DigComp (EU commission), UNICEF and the Essential Skills Index in the UK
• The model has been used by various stakeholders to shape tools for evaluation of policies and interventions in the UK, amongst which the What Works Toolkit (by Department of Culture, Media and Sports)

 Funding

This research was supported by the John Fell OUP Research Fund at the University of Oxford, the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and the Department of Communication Science, University of Twente.

This project examines media representations of COVID-19 from an intersectional perspective; specifically, the project interrogates how mainstream media reaffirm and/or contest the intensification of inequalities in the context of a pandemic. We address this question through a dual lens:

• (i) the narrative representations (in news-making)
• (ii) visual representations (in data visualisations) of the pandemic in mainstream media

We will analyse data from across the world  – USA, UK, Brazil, South Africa, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Spain, Russia, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India and Pakistan – to understand how inequalities, especially as these relate to gender, class and race, are reaffirmed and/or contested in mainstream media. Our core hypothesis is that news representations of COVID-19 are located within an axis, with economic life at the one end of the spectrum and socio-cultural life (incl. wellbeing) on the other.

We want to understand how news reports balance between the two extremes of this axis across time and space. We thus concentrate on three key temporal moments in the pandemic (assuming that those moments represent key points in the formation of global debates on COVID-19) and examine different spaces, especially as these are understood as distinct national mediascapes (though we assume certain fluidity within and across them). The three focal periods are:

• (1) April 2020 (first period – debate on COVID as a global concern emerges);
• (2) October 2020 (second period – rising second wave or concerns of second wave and interconnected transnational debates on measures, including travel bans, etc);
• (3) January 2021 (third period – way to “resolution” with vaccine becoming globally debated and rolled out)

 You can find more information about the project here.

The projects associated with DiSTO Youth aim to address the knowledge gap around young people’s digital skills and the outcomes they achieve through their use of ICTs. The projects combine qualitative and quantitative research methods to construct and test survey instruments and they evaluate the effectiveness of interventions related to young people's digital engagement.

The DiSTO Youth projects adapt the DiSTO survey measures for skills, uses and outcomes and develop new measures related to motivations, attitudes and support networks regarding young people and ICTs. Most projects are focussed on understanding to what extent digital inequalities exist amongst the generation of so-called ‘digital natives’ and which interventions might be most effective in tackling digital exclusion.

Regarding DiSTO surveys as a whole: the DiSTO NEETs (with the Prince’s Trust) and the Digital Reach project (Nominet Trust) are direct applications of the DiSTO surveys. Moreover, The Benessere Digitale (Milan Univeristy) and the Global and EU Kids Online projects (multi-stakeholder collaboration) have integrated measurement instruments from the DiSTO projects (particularly DiSTO Youth) for their research project. This project is also involved in ySKills. Please visit their websites to find out more.

The Digital Reach programme by Nominet Trust was set up to reimagine the delivery of digital skills training by putting expert youth organisations at the heart of a multi-stakeholder endeavour. All 12 delivery partners have existing and trusted relationships with hard-to-reach young people. As part of this programme, six pilot projects will test a range of new models across the UK to meaningfully improve the digital skills, confidence and resilience of those young people on the wrong side of the ‘digital divide’.

LSE’s participation in this project consists of:

• Developing a framework that will help evaluate the impact of the programmes in the Digital Research consortium
• Identifying a clear baseline and distance travelled for each young person participating in one of  the programmes
• Comparing and contrasting the impact of the different projects
• Evaluate the overall programme against the framework of a ‘Theory of Change’

This project officially called ‘Socio-digital Skills of Disadvantaged Young People’ (aka DiSTO NEETs) intends to contribute with both a better qualitative understanding of how the most vulnerable young people in Britain experience the increasingly digital world around them. DiSTO NEETs aims to establish the baseline distribution of a wide range of digital skills and calculate the influence of lacking digital skills on young people’s current and future prospects and well-being.

As of yet, little is known about how positive social interaction skills (i.e. networking and communication skills) and informal creative and participatory skills (i.e. creating and sharing texts, images and videos) impact the well-being of disadvantaged young people. This is the case for wellbeing defined as future employment and education prospects as well as in terms of psychological and physical wellbeing. There is also a particular gap in baseline data around the digital skills and engagement of young people who fall outside of or who are ‘marginalised’ from the mainstream education system such as young people not in education, employment or training (NEETs). DiSTO NEETs project aims to fill this gap.

This is achieved via:

• A review of the literature and evidence around digital literacy, motivation and attitudes in relation to disadvantaged young people
• 6 Focus groups with NEETs across the UK
• A nationally representative survey of 800 young internet users between 16 and 24 and a quota sample survey of 400 internet using NEETs

Researchers:  Ellen Helsper & Svetlana Smirnova

Funding: This project was funded through LSE Enterprise by the Nominet Trust.

This project hypothesises that network effects are influential in determining individual motivation to engage with ICTs. That is, individuals’ perceptions of ICT benefits are likely influenced by attitudes and behaviours within family, friend and community networks. The study develops a theoretical model and empirical instruments around motivational factors and relates these to network effects. Qualitative and quantitative comparative research is conducted in London and Los Angeles. These cities show high levels of traditional inequalities but differ in terms of the homogeneity of their neighbourhood, making them ideal to examine differential network effects. This study builds on existing projects in these cities and will feed into large scale future research.

This was achieved via:

• A systematic review of the literature on neighbourhood and network effects of inequalities
• Selection of four neighbourhoods in London and Los Angeles which had different combinations of high/low digital and high/low social inequalities (based on LA exclusion heatmaps)
• A survey with at least 75 individuals in each of the selected neighbourhoods (Final N=828)
• Elicitation of interviews with at least 3 individuals in each of the selected neighbourhoods, recruited through the survey (Final N=23)

Researcher: Ellen Helsper

Funding: Funding was provided by the International Inequalities Institute Research Innovation Grant.

Exclusion in a Digital Britain Heatmap project (2015-2017) was the original project that mapped social and digital exclusion in Britain. The project calculated social exclusion using data from the Office of National Statistics and Census data, and measured digital exclusion from a variety of verified and publically available data sources from institutes such as Ofcom, ONS and the Basic Digital Skills measures. This project developed the metrics for measuring exclusion at the lower output level by creating indexes of relative exclusion for both social and digital inequalities.

This was achieved via:

• The development of metrics that would allow for the visualisation of social and digital inequalities at the local area level
• A review of the existing (opensource) databases that could provide data for social (age, education, income and health) and digital (infrastructure, access, skills and use) inequalities indicators
• The mapping of inequalities at the neighbourhood level across the UK based on the available data

Impact

• The UK's standard definition for broadband was changed after the first mapping exercise took place, from 2mb/s to 10mb/s. This change was due to evidence that 2mb/s was not enough to push uptake in use and skills
• The measurement of skills was expanded when many local authorities realised that this data was not available, which hindered relevant decision making

Researchers: Ellen Helsper & Richard Kirch

Partners: DotEveryone, Technpartnership, Department for Culture Media and Sports, Lloyds. 

This project replicates the British study with a full representative sample of lower output areas within London which gives local authorities and neighbourhood councils the opportunity to understand the issues facing their particular community. The project will also help create awareness of inequalities between geographical areas which can lead to collective action by multiple stakeholders and local residence to overcome situations of disadvantage in increasingly digital societies.

Researcher: Ellen Helsper

Partners: Under discussion with the Mayor of London’s office