The risks of the gender digital divide among teenagers

Abstract

The gender digital divide between teens from seven countries in Europe, in Australia, and in countries of South America through a socio-cultural perspective is analyzed. The article compares which habits of use and consumption are attributed and performed by adolescents in multiple media and social media, and explores if these uses are grounded in the historically established gender roles. The data come from the Transmedia literacy research project (2015-2018) that had two main objectives: to explore what are teens doing with media and how have they learned to do it. An ethnographic approach was used, combining various research methods as questionnaires, interviews and participant observation, among others. In this article we focus on the analysis of the questionnaire implemented to map teens’ habits of use and consumption (N=1,520). To respond to the objective of the article, a descriptive univariate and bivariate analysis was carried out. The results show that the digital gender divide still exists and it takes shape through the persistence of gender stereotypes and roles associated to men and women and their relationship with media such as videogames practices (associated with boys) and the creation of stories (associated with girls).