Jacques-François Marchandise is General Delegate of the FING. In this interview, he presents the issues surrounding the link between digital technology and empowerment, a subject explored by the ANR Capacity project coordinated by the FING.

It's an association that has been in existence for about fifteen years, working on digital transformations, so that we can anticipate what digital changes in society, the economy, the territory, politics... It's a team of about fifteen people who choose their subjects according to emerging issues, issues that are leveraged in society.

One of the central questions for us at the Fing is whether digital technology gives capacity to the greatest number of people. After several years of thematic work, we wanted to ask this question with researchers, so with teams from Rennes 2 and Télécom Bretagne, in order to dig into the potential of digital technology as a social elevator, for example, a transformer that makes it possible to overcome educational and financial disparities, and also in the innovation potential of amateurs. It is a project that involves ethnography, interviews, long-term observations, and data processing. And a major survey for which we wanted to partner with the Agence du Numérique.

At Rennes 2, there are teams that are among the most advanced in France in terms of work on digital inclusion and learning, researchers in educational science and also from an approach to social work and inclusion over the years, so they are among the most relevant on these issues. At Télécom Bretagne, there is a whole range of work in the economics and social sciences teams that focuses on online communities and amateur practices, and Télécom Bretagne also runs a scientific interest group, Marsouin, with Rennes II and a few others, which is an extremely rare example of interdisciplinary decompartmentalization, in connection with very open issues, financed by the Brittany region.

What it produces, Capacity, is both a process of investigation, of research work: we had to install research methodologies, qualify a set of fields throughout France, in a very qualitative approach; and in addition, we had to ask ourselves a question of quantitative investigation, by linking the two very strongly.[su_pullquote align="right"]" We want to analyze whether digital technology really gives us power, whether it is empowering."[/su_pullquote]In the coming year we will interpret the results that come from these two different sources. To do what? On the one hand, to renew and densify the theoretical framework that allows us to ask the social questions of the digital world. For years we have wanted to go beyond the question of the digital divide, which is an old name, and the question of inclusion, which seems to us incomplete, to talk about "power to act". We want to analyze whether digital technology really gives us power, whether it is empowering. Or if, on the contrary, it creates incapacities, and this for the individual as well as in collective environments or from territorial policies.

Capacity therefore produces a theoretical framework and a set of operational recommendations for public and local actors, associations and others who have intentions in this area and believe that what can be expected from digital technology is to provide capabilities.

We are used to surveys that look at the rate of digital penetration, and that are very often based on the logic of digital consumption, on the logic of the market. Capacity adopts another logic, based on human development, and which consists in addressing the contribution of digital technology to our personal development and exploring the potential of these tools in our daily practices, our exchanges with peers, our self-construction, our professional transitions...

There are complementary survey logics in the digital world. That is to say, we need longitudinal studies over a number of years, such as those of Crédoc or those on the cultural practices of the French of the Ministry of Culture, because they produce series of data over years, even decades. Our position with Capacity is to propose new ways of asking these questions, based on the notion of power of action, "empowerment", which seem to us to be relevant terms. We want to explore the concept of a desirable digital environment, capable of providing society with tools.

Capacity is interested in the ways in which technologies are socialized. For example, a few years ago, no one spoke of a "data culture". Today it is important for citizens, within organizations. So our team is studying the data culture; it is not yet measurable by statistics, but probably more and more over the years. I have no doubt that many people will soon be able to define an algorithm. As people are increasingly confronted with sensors in the public space, with people who are driven by artificial intelligence, they are forming an opinion. Our conviction is the following: the more technological advances there are, the more the question that arises is not that of technology, but that of socialization, of its appropriation, and of knowing whether we will be subjected to technology, or whether we will manage to do something with it for ourselves, and for society.

Marsouin and I decided to include the Capacity Project in the WIP[World Internet Project] and thus to integrate the WIP descriptors into our survey, particularly with a view to comparing our work and thoughts with international partners. WIP surveys are intended to be published on a regular basis and over the long term. This partnership makes it possible to observe developments with more distance.

Dematerialization, digital manufacturing capabilities, the impact of social networks on the capacity for democratic expression, networking for access to employment... all these issues will evolve in the coming years. Our surveys will have to be able to capture these changes.