Reconsidering government digital strategies within the context of digital inequalities: the case of the UK Digital Strategy

Abstract

In this paper, we critically examine the 2022 UK Digital Strategy and argue that the UK government adopts with this policy document a customer-centric vision of governance, which undermines the traditional role of the government as a provider of public services with principles of justice and impartiality. This shift, exacerbated by digital poverty, appears incongruent with the social contract between citizens and the state. We employ a critical discourse analysis to identify contradictory outcomes resulting from these neoliberal policies and showcase that the UK Digital Strategy, while seemingly committed to aspects of equality and inclusivity, appear to prioritise almost entirely market rather than citizens’ interests.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Zamani, E.D. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3110-7495 Rousaki, A.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords:	Science, technology and society; Social policy
Dates:	Published: 24 October 2024 Published (online): 24 October 2024 Accepted: 10 October 2024 Submitted: 13 June 2024
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Faculty of Social Sciences Research Institute
Depositing User:	Symplectic Sheffield
Date Deposited:	28 Oct 2024 15:50
Last Modified:	28 Oct 2024 15:50
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1057/s41599-024-03921-6
Related URLs:	Dataset
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:218941