Embracing Context: Reframing Digital Inequality

As suites of new digital technologies are being implemented at an increasing rate across the world, their impact on individuals, organizations and societies continues to expand. Yet, the benefits of these technologies are not equally distributed, particularly in the low-middle-income countries (LMICs). Through a selected review of a broad literature, we observe that despite the plethora of initiatives undertaken to overcome these digital inequalities, the anticipated outcomes have not been generated and this disparity remains a persistent issue. We argue for a contextual understanding of technology that neither bridges nor overcomes this chasm between technologically advanced societies and low-middle-income countries (LMICs). Instead, we offer a reconceptualization of the goal of digital equality as human development by reframing the problem as a contextualized translation of an Information Systems (IS) artifact. The implications of this reframing are illustrated with an ongoing case of continuing medical education in LMICs which exposes avenues for IS researchers to explore in the future.