This page brings together a growing collection of videos and podcasts inspired by Maria Laura Ruiu’s and my academic work on digital inequalities, digital capital, and the social consequences of emerging technologies. Each piece is derived from my books and research, aiming to make complex ideas accessible beyond the academic sphere.
Through these short episodes, I reflect on how digital technologies shape our societies—intensifying existing inequalities while offering new opportunities for inclusion, participation, and sustainability. The series offers theoretical reflections, empirical insights, and comparative perspectives, inviting scholars, students, and practitioners to engage critically with the challenges and promises of our digital age.
1. Digital-Environmental Poverty: Inequality in the Post-Covid Era
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The first video explores how digital and environmental inequalities intersect in the post-Covid world. Drawing on Digital-Environmental Poverty by Maria Laura Ruiu and Massimo Ragnedda, it introduces the Digital-Environmental Poverty Framework, connecting digital access, environmental degradation, and social inequality across micro, meso, and macro levels, with comparative insights from the UK and China’s contrasting policy models.
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The accompanying podcast offers extended excerpts from the same book, examining the multi-layered intersection of digital and environmental poverty. It highlights the ambiguous role of ICTs as both contributors to inequality and potential tools for inclusion and sustainability. Through comparison of the UK’s market-led approach and China’s state-driven eco-civilization project, it argues for a holistic, multi-stakeholder approach to achieve equitable and sustainable outcomes.
2. Rethinking Poverty in the Digital Age
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The second video expands on the concept of Digital Poverty, urging a shift from a purely economic view of deprivation to one that integrates digital, socioeconomic, and environmental dimensions. It introduces the Digital Poverty Alliance Framework, which situates digital access, skills, and environmental quality within structural, circumstantial, and individual contexts, illustrating how these interconnections affect well-being and sustainability.
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This 16-minute interactive episode revisits the evolving meaning of poverty in the digital age. Moving beyond income-based definitions, it links digital capital with environmental sustainability and social inclusion. Through theory, reflection, and case insights, it challenges listeners to rethink poverty as a multidimensional, digitally mediated condition that shapes collective futures.
3. Chapter 2: Rethinking Poverty in the Digital Age
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This video explores Chapter 2 of Digital-Environmental Habitus by Maria Laura Ruiu and Massimo Ragnedda. It challenges conventional definitions of poverty, introducing the concept of digital poverty—a form of deprivation tied to unequal access to digital resources and skills. The chapter outlines how digital exclusion contributes to a rising digital underclass and intensifies existing social and environmental inequalities. By reframing poverty as a multi-layered condition—including digital and ecological dimensions—it calls for new approaches to policy and inclusion.
Listen on Spotify
This episode features an in-depth reading and reflection on Chapter 2 of Digital-Environmental Habitus. It argues that poverty in the digital age must be understood not just in economic terms, but also through access to digital technologies, environmental quality, and participation in policy decisions. The discussion highlights the global digital divide, the interplay between digital and environmental exclusion, and the need to expand our understanding of poverty to meet contemporary challenges.