Research on vulnerable people and digital inclusion: toward a consolidated taxonomical framework

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only caused a worldwide health crisis, but it has also deepened existing inequalities, and “has exacerbated the vulnerability of the least protected in society” (United Nations, 2020). Nowadays, there are many population groups that would be regarded as vulnerable. In daily life, citizens deal with a wide range of issues—social injustices, social marginalization and lack of impartiality—due to many reasons: culture, class, ethnicity, race, ideology, religion, gender, etc. To respond effectively to this problem—as the United Nations proposes in the goal 10 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—we first need to understand and clearly define the phenomenon of vulnerable people, and how digital inclusion could represent an asset to help vulnerable people to bridge inequalities. There is no commonly agreed typology framework, and specific categorization criteria as a basis to assist the further investigation of the area. Our work is focused on filling this gap. In doing so, our contribution is twofold. First, we conduct a systematic review of the literature (N = 331 studies) providing an overview of the overall definitions, trends, patterns, and developments that characterize the research on vulnerable people and digital inclusion. Second, we propose a taxonomy to frame the phenomenon of vulnerable people and digital inclusion. The categorization criteria can promote and support further multidisciplinary research to study and explore the relation existing between vulnerable people and digital inclusion.