This comprehensive Handbook explores the multiple ways in which people experience digital life. It maps the transitions in human civilization generated by such digital technologies as the internet, mobile telephony, artificial intelligence, the metaverse, social media platforms and algorithms. It explores how the scarcity or abundance of digital affordances impacts access, governance and livelihoods in various parts of the world. The book’s 27 chapters are organised in five sections: Social Media and Digital Lifeworlds; Digital Affordances and Contestations; Digital Divides and Inclusion Strategies; Work, Culture and Digital Consumption, and New Media and Digital Journalism. The present and future of digital transitions are interrogated in the context of everyday social production and consumption.   

Starting from the assumption that digital capital is a capital in its own right, and can be quantified and measured as such, the authors of this book examine how digital capital can be defined, measured and impact policy. Using the Bourdieusian lens, this book makes a critical contribution to the field by examining in depth the notion of digital capital and by introducing a new theoretical toolkit in order to fully conceptualise it. Against this theoretical background, the authors propose a set of indicators that can be used to measure digital capital at an individual level. Ultimately, readers will learn how this can be used by policy makers to tackle social inequalities which are based on the digital exclusion of citizens.