Digital Empowerment or Digital Divide? A Sociological Study of Social Media Impact on Dalit Women in Rural Chandauli
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.68219/51qec648Keywords:
Digital empowerment, Digital divide, Social transformation, Digital inclusion, IntersectionalityAbstract
The use of digital technologies and social media sites has, more and more, been seen as tools for inclusion, participation, and empowerment in the context of the current development discourse. With the fast-growing numbers of mobile subscribers in India, the affordable price of Internet service, and the advent of digital governance initiatives, communication and public participation have changed in rural areas of India. At the same time, access to the digital space is still disproportionately available to historical marginalized groups. More specifically, women from the Dalit community in rural areas are situated at the confluence of caste, gender and geographic disparities. This has created interesting questions about whether digital access translates into meaningful empowerment or whether existing historical forms of exclusion are merely being reproduced. This research analyzes how social media impacts the livelihoods of Dalit Women who live in Chandauli District in the state of Uttar Pradesh and whether increased access to digital resources promotes agency, social participation, and inclusion for Dalit Women or increases their digital inequity. The research investigates the associations of digital access, social media interaction, and the health condition of their household or family members, establish social networks, and their perception of empowerment. The study will be qualitative in nature, adopting an empirical sociological approach, utilizing a mixed-methods research design. Data collection will be achieved through household engagement, semi-structured interviews and interpretive analysis of their experiences with the digital media. Digital Divide Theory, Intersectionality Theory & Social Capital Theory were used as the theoretical framework. To understand how structural disadvantages contribute to access & use of digital technologies. The qualitative data suggests that social media adds new ways for Dalit Women to access information, communicate with others, express themselves publicly & be seen socially, however these opportunities are not shared equally among those that have access to digital technologies. Structural disadvantages, including educational differences, who controls their household, digital literacy, financial conditions & community norms were all impacted by & were barriers to their participation in digital technologies. While occupying a digital environment may provide Women with an opportunity for digital empowerment, only by increasing their ability to effectively use that technology can Women be allowed to digital leverage their participation into positive social outcomes. The overall conclusion of the study is that achieving digital inclusion goes beyond infrastructure development; it requires developing capacity, gender-sensitive access & mechanisms for socially inclusive participation within the digital sphere. National & international policies that include Digital Literacy & Local Support Systems as part of a Safe Digital Environments are necessary to convert access to technology into meaningful Social Empowerment.
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