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DiSTO Uruguay


DiSTO is linked to two distinct research initiatives in Uruguay

Country context

  • Uruguay, situated between two giants: Argentina and Brazil, is the second smallest South American country with only 3.4 million inhabitants (World Bank).
  • Uruguay has very high human development by international standards (55th on the world ranking list according to UNDP), with a Gini score of 40.6 according to World Bank data (2022).
  • In the context of Latin America, Uruguay is generally considered a small but stable country, with a considerably developed welfare state. For example, Uruguay is ranked first in Latin America for its quality and stability of its democratic system (Source: Democracy index), lower perceptions of corruption (Source: Corruption Perceptions Index), and freedom of press (Source: World Press Freedom Index).
  • Nonetheless, compared to developed countries, Uruguay faces substantial socioeconomic inequalities, particularly in its educational outcomes. For example, the achievement of secondary compulsory education is lower than in other Latin American countries, and youth from higher socioeconomic households are 5 times more likely to finish school than their peers from lower socioeconomic households (71% vs 15%; Source: INEED).
  • On the other hand, the Uruguayan government has implemented several successful national-scale digital inclusion policies, particularly for children and seniors. One notable example is Plan Ceibal, a government-funded offspring of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative. This policy provides laptops or tablets, fiber-optic connectivity and educational content free to all students and teachers in the public educational system (close to 1/6th of the total population). Moreover, some elements of Plan Ceibal, such as digital public libraries, are accessible to all Uruguayan residents (Source: Plan Ceibal).
  • Similarly, the government-funded Plan Ibirapitá provides free tablets specially developed to senior citizens, as well as basic digital literacy courses to all lower-income pensioners (Source: Plan Ibirapitá). The Uruguayan government also has a very active e-government and open-government agenda, substantially increasing the number of services and procedures available online during the past decade (Source: AGESIC).
  • 90% of the adult population use the daily (Source: ECH 2023, INE), and access in young people (9-17) is almost universal (Source: Kids Online Uruguay).

Projects in Uruguay

In Uruguay the DiSTO project has two survey project areas – DiSTO Liceal and WIP+DiSTO Uy.

DiSTO Liceal

DiSTO Liceal or “De las tecnologías a los resultados tangibles. El rol de las habilidades digitales en el bienestar de los estudiantes de la educación media pública uruguaya” (From technologies to tangible outcomes: the role of digital skills in the wellbeing of Uruguay’s public secondary education students) was conducted in 2017. The project adapted, verified and implemented the DiSTO project to a very specific population: students at public secondary education in the capital city of Uruguay (Montevideo). At this specific moment in the life course of young Uruguayans, DiSTO Liceal gathered data on the relationships between their digital skills, their use of digital resources and the outcomes that arise from their use.

This was achieved via:

  • Expert validation of the questionnaire
  • 18 cognitive interviews to adapt the questionnaire to the Uruguayan public education context
  • A pilot questionnaire of 40 individuals and a pilot-scale study of 200 people
  • A representative survey of 1000 students in Montevideo’s Secondary Public School system

Impact

  • DiSTO Liceal informed key public education stakeholders on digital outcomes and inequalities within and between public high schools
  • A short research report in Spanish can be found here

Researchers

Matías Dodel (Universidad Católica del Uruguay), Susana Lamschtein (Universidad de la República) and Ana Laura Rivoir (Universidad de la República)

Funding

This research was supported by the Fondo Sectorial de Educación: Inclusión Digital (Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación & Fundación Ceibal), the Department of Communications, Universidad Católica del Uruguay, and the Department of Sociology, Universidad de la República.

WIP + DiSTO Uy

WIP + DiSTO Uy integrates the World Internet Project (WIP) and the DiSTO project in a cross-sectional study of Uruguayan adults. The first edition of WIP + DiSTO Uy was conducted during 2017; the report from which can be found at the Universidad Católica del Uruguay's website.

This was achieved through:

  • Assessment and synthesis of WIP Uruguay and DiSTO questionnaires
  • Expert validation of the questionnaire
  • 15 cognitive interviews (10 paired and 5 individual) to adapt the questionnaire to Uruguay
  • A pilot questionnaire of 40 individuals
  • Representative survey of 2000 Uruguayans with access to a cell phone 

Impact

WIP + DiSTO Uy data was used to inform media outlets, students and key stakeholders on the state of diverse digital issues in the country such as:

  • Social network uses of the Uruguayan population (presented to the European Union’s Communication officers in Uruguay)
  • Humor-related uses and searches online (through the TV program “El Origen”)
  • Internet and e-commerce uses’ adequate measurement: issues and solutions (presented at the Metrics Seminar at Uruguayan Interactive Advertising Bureau)
  • Cyber-safety (communicated in a paper in review; also in Radio Program “No Toquen Nada”)
  • Internet and e-commerce uses’ adequate measurement: issues and solutions (presented at the Metrics Seminar at Uruguayan Interactive Advertising Bureau)
  • E-government-related digital inequalities (book chapter accepted for publication; presented at the Governance workshop of the Argentinian JAIIO)  
  • The development of pre-grade and grade courses on Internet & Society, and ICT and Public Policies
  • WIP + DiSTO Uy’s findings were also presented at the 2019 American Sociology Association’s CITAM Media Sociology Preconference in New York. The presentation was based on the study “Determinants of cyber-safety behaviors in a developing country: the role of socioeconomic inequalities, digital skills and perception of cyber-threats”, published in Journal First Monday

Researchers

Matías Dodel (Universidad Católica del Uruguay) & Florencia Aguirre (Universidad Católica del Uruguay)

Funding

This research was supported by the Carolan Research Institute (USA) and the Department of Communications, Universidad Católica del Uruguay.

 

Research team

DiSTO Liceal

Ana Laura Rivoir

Principal Investigator

Ana Laura Rivoir is a full-time Researcher and Professor at the Department of Sociology, Universidad de la República, where she has been working since 1991. Since 2007, she has also been the coordinator of the research group ObervaTIC (Observatory on Information and Communication Technologies) based at the Universidad de la República. She is a member of the National System of Researchers of Uruguay (Level I), Editor of the 'Revista de Ciencias Sociales' and the Vice President of Latin American Sociological Association (ALAS) since December 2015. Her research interests include digital media and social inclusion, human infomational development and social inequalities.

Matias Dodel

Principal Investigator

Matías Dodel is a Sociologist (PhD, M.A. & B.A.) and Psychologist (B.A.) who specialises in Information Society, Public Policy and Poverty/Inequality issues. Head of Research at Universidad Católica del Uruguay (UCU), Matías is also a Researcher and Professor at the Department of Communications. In 2013, he was appointed as the Director of the Research Group on Uruguay, Society & Internet (GIUSI), where he leads the World Internet Project, DiSTO Project, and Kids Online's Uruguayan sector, at UCU. He also works as an expert Sociologist at the National E-government and Information Society Agency (AGESIC) of the Uruguayan government Presidency, where he developed the official ICT surveys (EUTIC: 2010, 2013 & 2016) in collaboration with the National Statistical Office (INE).

Matías' research focuses on how the internet and information society interact with social inequality and stratification. He has studied the effects of digital skills on education-to-work transitions in Uruguay, the potentials of digital technologies for local development and the links of social disparities with e-government use. His current research centers on the impact of digital inequalities on cybersecurity skills and behaviours; the risks and benefits of internet use for kids and young people; and the tangible outcomes of digital literacy and internet use. 

Susana Lamschtein

Principal Investigator

Susana Lamschtein has researched digital inclusion in Uruguayan society since 2007 at the Department of Sociology in the Universidad de la República. Susana's doctoral thesis studied the uses and outcomes of digital technologies in secondary school students in Montevideo. Susana teaches undergraduate quantitative research methodologies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, (Universidad de la República); she is a member of the National System of Researchers of Uruguay (Level Candidate) since 2014; and she has been a Member of the research group ObservaTIC since 2007.

Federico Rodriguez

Research Assistant 

Federico Rodríguez, holds B.A. in Socioeconomic Development from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Universidad de la República. He is a researcher at the Observatory of Information and Comunication Technologies and is currently involved in different projects centred on information society.

WIP + DiSTO Uy

Matias Dodel

Principal Investigator

Matías Dodel is Office Coordinator of the Secretary of Research; the Research Group on Society & Internet; and Adjunct Professor at the Communications Department and Social and Political Sciences Department, at Universidad Católica del Uruguay. His research focuses on digital inequalities and their impact on traditional axes of socioeconomic disparities in areas such as education-to-work transitions, e-government and digital safety. He is currently involved in two DiSTO initiatives in Uruguay (DiSTO at Highschool, and WIP + DiSTO) as well as in the Uruguayan Chapters of Kids Online Latin American and the World Internet Project.

Florencia Aguirre

Research Assistant 

Florencia Aguirre, holds a B.A. in Sociology from the Faculty of Human Sciences at Universidad Católica del Uruguay. She is a researcher at the Research Group on Society & Internet and is currently involved in different projects centred on information society.

 

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