Mapping users’ perspectives and outlining social impacts from digitalization of terrestrial TV in Brazil

The digital divide has numerous aspects and is as dynamic as the technology industry is able to develop and disseminate new ICTs and services, thus increasing or creating new gaps among the more advanced societies and those still hampered by social and economic problems. In developing countries the diffusion of new technologies is often hindered by factors such as insufficient income, deficient infrastructure, cultural barriers and lack of information. Brazil is no exception to that rule, and all information and communication technologies (ICT) diffusion surveys undertaken to date confirm the trend that digital exclusion is following the dreadful pattern of social exclusion. The income disparities in Brazil are very severe and, also due to the country’s huge territory and complex geographical and cultural formations, a technological innovation is seldom capable of reaching the population as a whole and benefiting the entire society. One outstanding exception is the terrestrial (free-to-air) TV, which, after about 50 years since its introduction, has reached an adoption rate of more than 90%, and now covers the whole country, with enormous sociocultural consequences. In view of this, and with the objective of addressing the problem of digital exclusion, the Brazilian Government has devised the deployment of digital terrestrial television—DTT—as a singular opportunity to reduce the digital divide and to promote the access of the population to interactive and citizenship services through an already familiar interface, thus avoiding or reducing cultural constraints and illiteracy barriers usually posed by other ICTs. This study undertakes a comprehensive discussion of that policy and its effects, and provides some data to support the strategy: the results of two interrelated studies; one that maps TV users’ characteristics and expectations regarding digital TV, and another that models the social network effects on the diffusion of DTT into Brazilian society and the users’ behavior when facing the new media, namely, an agent-based modeling and simulation—ABMS. The model uses the mapping information as input to test some hypothetical scenarios in the diffusion process, so as to identify factors that affect the overall diffusion process. All these studies are in the scope of a broader and deeper methodology for ex ante analysis.