Thesis Chapters by Dario Pizzul
Master Thesis
In primis, un concetto chiave relativo al tema dei Big Data è quello del "bene informazione". Sec... more In primis, un concetto chiave relativo al tema dei Big Data è quello del "bene informazione". Secondo gli autori della definizione fin qui presa in esame, questo bene informazione si concretizza in un insieme di dati strutturati in maniera tale da essere utili e rilevanti per uno scopo preciso (De Mauro et al. 2016). L'importanza del bene informazione è tale che, secondo alcuni, ai fini della produzione, esso ricopre lo stesso valore di lavoro, capitale e terreni (Cavanillas et al. 2016). Già in questa prima parte della definizione può essere utile esplicitare un ulteriore aspetto relativo alla natura dei dati. A questo proposito è significativa la definizione di Big Data proposta da SAS (2018). Questa importante azienda di business intelligence statunitense, pur formulando una definizione che, come quelle di numerose altre aziende, ha il difetto di focalizzarsi eccessivamente sulla dimensione tecnica ed informatica del fenomeno, ha il pregio di mettere in luce due importanti caratteristiche del bene informazione. Quest'ultimo può infatti presentarsi sotto forma di dati strutturati o dati non strutturati. Per comprendere meglio questa differenza è interessante considerare quanto si legge in un report del National Istitute of Standards and Technology del dipartimento del commercio U.S.A. (NIST 2017); il settore principale di riferimento in questa analisi è il business, ma ciò non preclude un'estensione di questi concetti anche ad altri campi. Per "dati strutturati" si intende l'insieme di informazioni che possono essere analizzate tramite modelli relazionali, come una semplice tabella, dove i dati possono essere opportunamente inseriti nelle celle. Mentre con "dati non strutturati" si fa riferimento a pagine web, micro-testi, immagini, video che non sono analizzabili attraverso modelli relazionali e necessitano tecniche di altro tipo per poter essere organizzati, compresi e sfruttati. Quest'ultima tipologia di dati è andata via via crescendo, sia per volume che per importanza, con il progressivo diffondersi di internet e dei dispositivi mobile. Precisato questo necessario arricchimento alla definizione che è stata scelta come riferimento, prima di procedere oltre, è importante fare un'ulteriore considerazione. Dal punto di vista teorico, il concetto di informazione e dato sono ben distinti tra loro: il primo sta ad indicare un insieme di dati, il più delle volte già raffinati, in grado di comunicare qualche tipo di conoscenza; per dato, invece, si intende un elemento grezzo, raccolto secondo un determinato standard (Brown, 2018). Se dal punto di vista teorico si tratta di elementi ben distinti, spesso, in discorsi che non necessitano di questa distinzione teorica, essi sono usati intercambiabilmente. Anche in questo lavoro, ove non sia necessaria una precisa distinzione tra questi due aspetti, capiterà di fare riferimento a questi due termini in maniera simile, consapevoli, però, delle differenze appena elencate.
Drafts by Dario Pizzul
The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic hit the world hard, affecting several domains of social and economic l... more The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic hit the world hard, affecting several domains of social and economic life. Digital technologies are one of the realms that have been largely involved since the coronavirus spread at the worldwide level. Among its many other applications, since the spring of 2020, digital technologies started to play a role in tracing the contacts between people, with the aim to slow down the spreading of the disease by interrupting its chain of diffusion. Many countries developed their own technological solutions for digital contact tracing, releasing different apps. In the first half of April 2020, two multinational tech corporations, Apple and Google, announced the release of a joint protocol to help develop these technologies, clearly indicating which approach they were adopting among the many that the states were developing. Within this scenario, the research aims at studying how multinational corporations, national states, and citizens interacted in the governance of design, implementation, and use of contact tracing apps. This research’s objective moves and aims to contribute to the literature that considers technology as a social construction. The analysis will be based on a case study of three European countries’ technological solutions for contact tracing: the Italian, the French, and the German app. Three different data gathering techniques will be employed: interviews with relevant actors to gather information over the actors’ perspective; document analysis to shed light on the process that brought to the apps’ definition; and artifact analysis to study more closely the technological objects. This approach will also provide information on differences and similarities of the process of definition, adoption, and governance of the technologies in the three countries. Moreover, it will help to understand why differences and similarities emerged, and it will offer insights on the states and corporations’ relationship in the digital technology domain.
For the past twenty-five years, digital inequalities have been analyzed by several scholars. Many... more For the past twenty-five years, digital inequalities have been analyzed by several scholars. Many empirical studies have shaped a theoretical framework that identifies three main digital divides. However, most of the scientific contributions have been focusing on digital inequalities within countries, leaving inequalities among countries behind. This paper aims at analyzing what kind of digital inequalities emerge among European countries, focusing on the trends that characterized Europe in the last decade, to consider whether some of the main elements of the digital divide literature replicate at the continental level. The paper analyzes secondary data, mainly retrieved from Eurostat. It emerges that inequalities in digital skills and use of the Web persist in Europe, and some of the trends that scholars found among individuals are identifiable among countries as well. These findings contribute to the description of digital inequalities, a social phenomenon not so deeply studied at the continental level.
Papers by Dario Pizzul
Frontiers in sociology, Jul 9, 2024
Information, Communication & Society
In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, European countries implemented several non-pharmace... more In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, European countries implemented several non-pharmaceutical interventions with country-specific policies and reduced coordination. Digital Contact Tracing (DCT) was one of the few interventions on which European countries had a common approach oriented toward DCT apps’ interoperability. As most EU countries implemented interoperable apps relying on an Apple and Google’s framework, France developed the app autonomously. Recent literature argues that France’s choice was mainly due to its strong stance in defense of national digital sovereignty. However, current contributions do not largely cover the issue empirically. Therefore, we aim to better explore the role played by digital sovereignty in the political debate related the development of DCT apps. To do so, we conducted a thematic analysis of 16 documents from France’s political bodies, selected from a larger corpus of 438 documents dealing with DCT. Three main relevant dimensions related to digital sovereignty emerge. First, the initially sponsored EU interoperability progressively faded in the French political debate. Then, Apple and Google’s involvement in the healthcare domain was perceived as highly problematic. Finally, having national players developing the DCT app was largely preferred. Based on our empirical findings, we further engaged with the concept of digital sovereignty, pointing out its difference from digital sovereignism by highlighting the ontological distinction between practices and ideas. Building on these reflections, we argue that France’s stance towards DCT and the related digital sovereignty practices subtended digital sovereignism positions.
In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, European countries implemented several non-pharmace... more In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, European countries implemented several non-pharmaceutical interventions with country-specific policies and reduced coordination. Digital Contact Tracing (DCT) was one of the few interventions on which European countries had a common approach oriented toward DCT apps’ interoperability. As most EU countries implemented interoperable apps relying on an Apple and Google’s framework, France developed the app autonomously. Recent literature argues that France’s choice was mainly due to its strong stance in defense of national digital sovereignty. However, current contributions do not largely cover the issue empirically. Therefore, we aim to better explore the role played by digital sovereignty in the political debate related the development of DCT apps. To do so, we conducted a thematic analysis of 16 documents from France’s political bodies, selected from a larger corpus of 438 documents dealing with DCT. Three main relevant dimensions related to digital sovereignty emerge. First, the initially sponsored EU interoperability progressively faded in the French political debate. Then, Apple and Google’s involvement in the healthcare domain was perceived as highly problematic. Finally, having national players developing the DCT app was largely preferred. Based on our empirical findings, we further engaged with the
concept of digital sovereignty, pointing out its difference from digital sovereignism by highlighting the ontological distinction between practices and ideas. Building on these reflections, we argue that France’s stance towards DCT and the related digital sovereignty practices subtended digital sovereignism positions.
International Journal of Digital Literacy and Digital Competence, 2021
For the past twenty-five years, digital inequalities have been analyzed by several scholars. Many... more For the past twenty-five years, digital inequalities have been analyzed by several scholars. Many empirical studies have shaped a theoretical framework that identifies three main digital divides. However, most of the scientific contributions have been focusing on digital inequalities within countries, leaving inequalities among countries behind. This paper aims at analyzing what kind of digital inequalities emerge among European countries, focusing on the trends that characterized Europe in the last decade, to consider whether some of the main elements of the digital divide literature replicate at the continental level. The paper analyzes secondary data, mainly retrieved from Eurostat. It emerges that inequalities in digital skills and use of the Web persist in Europe, and some of the trends that scholars found among individuals are identifiable among countries as well. These findings contribute to the description of digital inequalities, a social phenomenon not so deeply studied at...
International Journal of Digital Literacy and Digital Competence, 2021
For the past 25 years, digital inequalities have been analyzed by several scholars. Many empirica... more For the past 25 years, digital inequalities have been analyzed by several scholars. Many empirical
studies have shaped a theoretical framework that identifies three main digital divides. However, most
of the scientific contributions have been focusing on digital inequalities within countries, leaving
inequalities among countries behind. This paper aims at analyzing what kind of digital inequalities
emerge among European countries, focusing on the trends that characterized Europe in the last
decade, to consider whether some of the main elements of the digital divide literature replicate at the
continental level. The paper analyzes secondary data, mainly retrieved from Eurostat. It emerges that
inequalities in digital skills and use of the web persist in Europe, and some of the trends that scholars
found among individuals are identifiable among countries as well. These findings contribute to the
description of digital inequalities, a social phenomenon notso deeply studied at the continental level.
Books by Dario Pizzul
During the COVID-19 pandemic, digital contact tracing (DCT) has been a largely discussed topic ma... more During the COVID-19 pandemic, digital contact tracing (DCT) has been a largely discussed topic mainly due to privacy and data protection implications. This contribution explores to what extent these issues have been pivotal in the development of DCT in Italy. Through 17 interviews with experts who designed and implemented the app, it emerges that privacy is indeed a core element in the design of DCT. These findings are compared to the perspective of the users, explored through the analysis of about 23.5 thousand app reviews. The reviews, scraped from the Google Play Store, are initially analyzed through basic automatic techniques. Then, manual thematic analysis is performed on reviews dealing with privacy. It emerges that users do not seem to care much about it. These findings are coherent with several theoretical contributions arguing that users do not always have a full understanding of the privacy implications of the technology in use.
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Thesis Chapters by Dario Pizzul
Drafts by Dario Pizzul
Papers by Dario Pizzul
concept of digital sovereignty, pointing out its difference from digital sovereignism by highlighting the ontological distinction between practices and ideas. Building on these reflections, we argue that France’s stance towards DCT and the related digital sovereignty practices subtended digital sovereignism positions.
studies have shaped a theoretical framework that identifies three main digital divides. However, most
of the scientific contributions have been focusing on digital inequalities within countries, leaving
inequalities among countries behind. This paper aims at analyzing what kind of digital inequalities
emerge among European countries, focusing on the trends that characterized Europe in the last
decade, to consider whether some of the main elements of the digital divide literature replicate at the
continental level. The paper analyzes secondary data, mainly retrieved from Eurostat. It emerges that
inequalities in digital skills and use of the web persist in Europe, and some of the trends that scholars
found among individuals are identifiable among countries as well. These findings contribute to the
description of digital inequalities, a social phenomenon notso deeply studied at the continental level.
Books by Dario Pizzul
concept of digital sovereignty, pointing out its difference from digital sovereignism by highlighting the ontological distinction between practices and ideas. Building on these reflections, we argue that France’s stance towards DCT and the related digital sovereignty practices subtended digital sovereignism positions.
studies have shaped a theoretical framework that identifies three main digital divides. However, most
of the scientific contributions have been focusing on digital inequalities within countries, leaving
inequalities among countries behind. This paper aims at analyzing what kind of digital inequalities
emerge among European countries, focusing on the trends that characterized Europe in the last
decade, to consider whether some of the main elements of the digital divide literature replicate at the
continental level. The paper analyzes secondary data, mainly retrieved from Eurostat. It emerges that
inequalities in digital skills and use of the web persist in Europe, and some of the trends that scholars
found among individuals are identifiable among countries as well. These findings contribute to the
description of digital inequalities, a social phenomenon notso deeply studied at the continental level.