Digital policy narratives: addressing grand challenges or exacerbating digital inequalities?

Like many countries, the UK has been exploring digital technologies to address grand challenges, such as unemployment and climate change. In this paper, we study UK policy-generated narratives of the past 10 years to explore the role of said inequalities within the UK policy rhetoric on the benefits of digital technologies. We combine topic modelling and qualitative analysis to analyse 227 policy documents. Our findings indicate that policy frames digital technologies as able to support efficiencies and innovation. Policy also proposes that regional initiatives are needed to incentivise businesses, through funding, and to support citizens, primarily through digital skills training. We argue that, in this discourse, digital technologies are framed as the panacea for addressing challenges, without sufficiently recognising that techno-centric solutions, considering digital inequalities, can instead exacerbate existing divides. In this respect, our study contributes by showcasing the need for policy framing being aligned and consistent with the prioritisation of digital inequalities for constructive digital transformations.