LA GREY LITERATURE COME SPAZIO SEMI-FRINGE: UNA RIFLESSIONE SUL DIVARIO DIGITALE TRA ANZIANI NEL LAZIO E NEL VENETO

Accelerating digitization and demographic aging have resulted in new forms of social inequality, interpreted in this study through the category of the grey digital divide. Adopting a qualitative approach, we analyze how recent Italian grey literature contributes to the construction and communication of the issue of digital inclusion in the elderly population. Digital exclusion is configured as a phenomenon that transcends mere lack of knowledge, but as an outcome of structural inequalities, cultural and communicative representations. Grey literature, understood as a discursive device, detects dynamics that highlight the tension between social innovation, promises of empowerment and dynamics of exclusion. It configures a semi-fringe space of public communication, in which processes of symbolic inclusion are articulated, functional to dynamics specific to fringe democracy.