No one-size fits all: From digital inequality profiles to a customised digital inclusion strategie.

The causes of digital exclusion are too easily brought back to a series of socio-demographics such as income, jobs status, education level or gender. A study by van Deursen and Helsper (2015) shows that digital inequalities depend upon life stage, social environment and psychological characteristics. In 2015, Mariën and Baelden developed a renewed conceptual model for those at risk of being digitally excluded. The model consists of eight profiles of digital inequalities based upon five risk factors in the social field (cf. income, education, participation, agency, wellbeing) and eight risk indicators in the digital field (cf. access, attitude, digital skills, soft skills, media richness, autonomy of use, user practices and support networks), mapped across a continuum ranging from deep exclusion to deep inclusion. In Flanders and the Netherlands, this renewed model has proven to be successful for the development and deployment of customised digital inclusion strategies. This contribution presents the practical application of the eight digital inequality profiles by civil society organisations, policy actors and an educational institution. It addresses why and how the profiles were transformed into accessible and ready-to-use physical cards, graphically designed showing key features and how these cards were subsequently used by civil society organisations and policy actors to incite self-reflection processes and co-create customised digital inclusion approaches for each profile. In addition, it explains how the model was translated into an accessible self-assessment instrument, allowing ROC Leeuwenborgh, a vocational training centre, to map the distribution of their students across the eight profiles. In a following phase, participatory workshops will be conducted with the students and their lecturers, aimed to build a digitally inclusive and customised approach suited to each profile. This article brings a significant contribution to existing research by arguing that achieving better digital inclusion strategies necessitates to engage in a shift from a sole technical approach and its focus on infrastructures and the provision of equipment, to take into consideration the social processes in which digital media are embedded.