The Capabilities Divide: ICT Adoption and Use among Bedouin in Israel

ABSTRACT

The Bedouin community, a subpopulation of the Arab minority in Israel, has been subject to systematic discrimination throughout the state’s history, including in accessibility to digital services. Based on 25 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Bedouin men and women residing in unrecognised villages – townlets that are not legally designated as municipal entities by the state and therefore lack basic infrastructure – this study asks whether and how the capabilities approach can be used to assess and examine ICT usage among the Bedouin as a marginalised community with distinct needs. The analysis illuminates the tensions and contradictions that characterise their digital experiences and shows that the capabilities approach is particularly apposite for understanding digital exclusion while compensating for the shortcoming of the digital divide framework. The findings uncover the ubiquitous presence of mobile smartphones among Bedouin users as the central enabler of their desired capabilities while pointing out the vital place religion plays in the community members’ decision-making regarding the use of ICTs for the realisation of their desired capabilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Bedouin
• capabilities
• digital divide
• Amartya Sen‌
• Israel
• ICT

Introduction

This paper uses the capabilities approach to examine the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the everyday lives of Bedouin users residing in unrecognised villages in Israel. Accordingly, it proposes to realise capabilities as an essential dimension in recognising and assessing a digital divide. Based on 25 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Bedouin men and women who reside in unrecognised villages, we illuminate the tensions and contradictions that characterise their digital experiences and show how these tensions and contradictions challenge basic digital divide assumptions, thus inviting a complementary assessment through the capabilities approach. Our analysis demonstrates why this approach is particularly apposite for understanding digital exclusion not as a deficit in access to technology and its utilisation but instead as an inadequacy in tailoring information and communication technologies to the self-defined needs and wants of individuals. It thus contributes to an effort to redefine the digital divide and to propose policy approaches that focus on individual growth and goal realisation rather than on ownership and the ability to perform society-defined activities.

The Bedouin community is a subpopulation of the Arab minority in Israel. The majority of Bedouins, 250,000, reside in the Negev desert, which covers the southern half of the state. They comprise a third of the Negev’s residents. The Bedouins have been subject to systematic exclusion, discrimination, and neglect since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 in all aspects of life, including infrastructure, education, and health services (Abu-Kaf, Schejter, and Jafar 2019; Arar 2015; Rotem 2016). One result of this condition of the Bedouins is the severe inaccessibility to contemporary digital services, which is mostly undocumented (Abu-Kaf, Schejter, and Jafar 2019).

The capabilities approach focuses on what a person can do (e.g. with technology) rather than on what a person has, thus encouraging societies to aspire to close the gap between people’s actual needs and their ability to realise them, rather than what they own. The capabilities approach assumes that people’s ability to realise their goals is determined mainly by their life circumstances and in turn, contributes to their quality of life (Nussbaum 1997; Sen 1980).

The following literature review begins with an overview of the Bedouin community in Israel, with particular attention to their unique life circumstances. We then review the digital divide literature, before introducing the capabilities approach as a framework that allows for a different analysis of digital exclusion. Following the review, we present the methodology for data-gathering and the analysis of the interviews. The study asks whether and how the capabilities approach can be used to assess, examine, and analyze ICT usage by the Bedouin and how this approach can serve as a framework for analyzing ICT usage in a marginalised community with distinct needs. We conclude by proposing an alternative to the well-trodden approach to encounter digital exclusion patterns by providing access to technology and boilerplate types of knowledge.

Literature Review

The Bedouin Community

The Bedouins are a semi-nomadic community that have resided in the Negev at least since the early nineteenth century (Bailey 1985). Following Israel’s war for independence in 1948, only 11,000 of the 70,000–90,000 that resided there previously remained, a pattern similar to that of the rest of the Arab population that either fled or was expelled during the war. The remaining Bedouins were concentrated mostly in what is labelled the “restricted area,” which covers only a small part of their historical lands (Jakubowska 1992).

The Bedouins were subjected to the martial law instilled on the Arab minority between 1958 and 1966 (Nasasra 2012; Robinson 2004). The restricted area was designated a closed military zone, which allowed control of the residents’ freedoms and movement. The Bedouins’ semi-nomadic traditional way of life was thus significantly affected (Abu-Saad 2008a, 2008; Meir 1997) and the community found itself isolated geographically and severed from the rest of the Arab society residing in Israel.

Following the lift of martial law, the state developed different propositions focusing on promoting the “modernization” of the community, which was code for its continued control and keeping it away from the main traffic routes while transferring its lands to the Jewish population. Much of the community’s lands, including highly fertile lands, were given to Jewish settlements built on them (Yiftachel 2003) in an effort to change the Negev’s demographics (Porat 2008).

Modernising was also translated into urbanising the community, mostly against its will (Swirski and Hasson 2005). The government established seven townships in the 1970s and 1980s to support this effort. However, the townships suffered from poor planning and low-quality construction. Their infrastructure was not developed to twentieth-century standards that characterised the development of neighbouring Jewish towns and remained underdeveloped over the years. Most egregious was the neglect of the education system, public institutions (e.g. libraries and community centres), the sewage infrastructure, and the roads. The seven townships were designed to concentrate the complete Bedouin population in the Negev and did not consider its unique lifestyles and agricultural, rural, and semi-nomadic culture.

Living conditions in the Bedouin towns are abysmal as a result of this policy (State Comptroller of Israel 2002). Among others, the seven Bedouin towns are ranked at the bottom of the socioeconomic clusters (clusters 1-2) as defined by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (Schejter and Tirosh 2016) and are characterised by low levels of education as well as by other measures of quality of life (Rudnitzky 2012). A substantial part of the community resisted the move to the townships. Most of these reside in the former restricted area or in new villages established there, without government consent; hence the popular referral to them as “unrecognized villages” (Meir 2005; Yiftachel 2003). In 2008, the government appointed a committee headed by a retired Supreme Court Justice and former State Comptroller. It reported that the conditions in the unrecognised villages were “insufferable” and advocated a comprehensive resolution recognising as many unrecognised villages as possible. The committee’s recommendations were never implemented, and neither were subsequent attempts to reach a fair resolution of the Bedouin predicament.

Digital Differentiation and Diversity

The term “digital divide” was originally coined in the 1990s to describe the gap between information “have” and “have-nots” (Burgess 1997; Hoffman and Novak 1998). It developed soon thereafter to “the divide between those with access to new technologies and those without” (NTIA 1999) following a study of the United States’ National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) examining which households in the United States had access to telephones, computers, and the internet, and which did not.

However, concomitant with the development of digital technology came an understanding that the view of the divide focusing on information rather than technology may be more accurate. A comprehensive description of this conceptual development was articulated by Wei et al. (2011), who identified the development of the understanding of the digital divide from the inequality of access to ICTs in homes and schools to the observation that the inequality is in the ability to utilise ICTs. Eventually came the realisation that the inequality lies in the outcomes of using digital technologies, such as learning and productivity (Wei et al. 2011). This conceptual development impacted the “digital divide discourse [which] has shifted from binary internet access, to skills and use of the internet, to a focus on the beneficial outcomes of internet use” (Scheerder, van Deursen, and van Dijk 2017, 1609).

A model developed by Van Dijk (2005) demonstrates the circularity by which lack of access emanating from social, cultural, and economic inequalities exacerbates those very same inequalities. Unequal access to digital technologies brings about unequal participation in society, which reinforces the categorical inequalities and unequal distribution of resources that contributed to the divide in the first place. The digital divide, therefore, cannot be reduced to be seen as a divide between haves and have-nots but rather as the phenomenon that is at the base of exclusion from participating in the social processes that the digital experience creates the opportunity for. The digital divide is about overcoming digital exclusion (A Schejter, Ben Harush, and Tirosh 2017).

The Capabilities Approach

The capabilities approach (Sen 1980, 1995) serves as the theoretical basis for our analysis. It asserts that every rational person is presumed to want specific goods and resources. However, individual claims are not to be assessed in terms of the resources or goods the persons respectively hold, but by the freedoms they actually enjoy choosing, and the lives that they have reason to value.

The capabilities approach asks what a person can do or be (known as a functionings) rather than what a person has (which is a good that has characteristics). It assumes that it is individuals’ ability to realise the goals they set for themselves that leads to their flourishing, contributes to their quality of life, and ultimately serves the realisation of their right to individual freedom. The things people can do are known as capabilities (Sen 1984). According to this approach, the goal of a just society is to provide people with opportunities that allow them to pursue their self-defined goals or, in other words, to realise their capabilities.

Personal, social, economic, educational, technological, and environmental conversion factors influence the realisation of capabilities (Robeyns 2005). They are often needed to create “the suitable external conditions for the exercise of the functioning” (Nussbaum 2007, 290) that will turn the capabilities with which an individual is born into capabilities an individual can utilise in service of her desired functionings. Indeed, ICTs can serve as significant (though not necessarily sufficient) conversion factors that allow the realisation of capabilities (Schejter and others, 2023).

The characteristics of the goods’ relevance to the realisation of capabilities emanates from the fact that certain capabilities can be realised by using certain goods (among other things) only if the goods have the needed characteristics (Sen 1984). The relevance of goods emanates from the characteristics they own, which are needed to allow people to achieve desired functionings. Capabilities reflect a person’s freedom to lead one type of life or another, while a person’s well-being depends on the functionings achieved by realising those capabilities. Capabilities reflect the freedom to choose what functionings one wants to achieve.

Implementing the capabilities approach requires differentiating capabilities, which are freedoms actually enjoyed, from both goods and functionings. Indeed, an individual may enjoy social liberties yet be incapable (i.e. due to a disability) of putting the ownership of goods into practice. In contrast, others who do not have access to certain goods may be unable to utilise them even if granted access due to a lack of opportunity to learn how to use them.

Capabilities, Communications, and ICTs

The capabilities approach becomes more relevant than merely attractive as a basis for analyzing the role of ICTs in society due to the unprecedented potential for personalisation of contemporary ICTs. Indeed, contemporary digital media breaks the traditional differentiation between personal and mass communications. This new ICT reality is characterised, when compared to the one informed by the ICTs of the past, by the fact that it proposes an abundance of information, channels that carry it, and capacity to store it; interactivity, which allows individuals to build their own media environment and communicate with producers of both interpersonal and mass messages; mobility, the capability to communicate at will from a variety of locations none of which are necessarily a person’s home or workplace; and multimediality, the functionality that allows communicating using a variety of mediated formats at will and simultaneously (Schejter and Tirosh 2016). It is the parallel between the capabilities approach’s focus on the individual and her self-prescribed needs that are to be realised, and contemporary ICTs’ personalisation characteristics, that contributes to this relevance.

While “media and culture have only very rarely figured in the capabilities approach” (Hesmondhalgh 2017, 212), media scholars agree that “capabilities is a topic long overdue for broader attention by researchers in media communications” (Couldry 2019, 43; see also Jacobson 2016). Indeed, the relationship between capabilities and contemporary media is not limited to the superficial similarity of their focus on individuality; the capabilities approach is an effective way to translate moral ideas such as fairness, equality, and rights into measurable opportunities that contemporary ICTs can support. This framework challenges the accepted approaches to resolving digital divides, which are both top-down, instead of user-based, based on aggregates and averages instead of on individuals, and focused on technology rather than on how it is used. As such, the capabilities approach is useful for rethinking the idea of the digital divide and awarding its analysis more complex and nuance, distancing it from the focus on access and utilisation of technology to the functioning its users aim to achieve.

In one of the earliest attempts to connect digital media with the capabilities approach, Garnham (1997) states that “in the field of communications … it is not access in a crude sense that is crucial but the distribution of the social resources that make access usable” (115) and it is “the real availability of opportunities and the real achievement of functionings that matters” (121). Garnham uses the examples of ICT usefulness for people with disabilities as well as for people with different levels of education and literacy as examples for such calls for nuanced analysis. Mansell (2002) also used the capabilities perspective in her call to reframe the conversation regarding the digital divide and move away from its economic focus. Britz et al. (2013) added that “providing access is not sufficient” (112) when advocating for justice-based approaches to contemporary media development. More broadly, Jacobson (2016) convincingly argued that the capabilities approach should be employed as an overarching framework for communication studies focusing on development and social change. What this study does, in addition to previous studies by the authors (Neriya-Ben Shahar, Marciano and Schejter, 2023; Schejter and others, 2023, Shomron and Schejter, 2020, 2021, 2022) is propose empirical data that identifies actual capabilities and functionings rather than leaving the discussion in the theoretical realm and focused on goods. Some of the capabilities we have identified as “communication capabilities” in previous work (Schejter and others, 2023, Shomron and Schejter, 2020, 2021, 2022) are identified here as well: the capabilities to voice, to inform, to be informed, to identify and belong, to remember and forget, to be secure, and to enjoy.

Method

Between 2017 and 2019, we conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 25 Bedouin men and women to better understand the role of media technologies in their everyday lives. The interviews were conducted in Arabic by a Bedouin research assistant to overcome potential suspicion and distrust, and they took place either at participants’ homes or at cafés, according to their preferences. Interviews began with a general warm-up question (“Tell me about yourself”) and continued with a short sociodemographic questionnaire. The central part of the interviews included predetermined, relatively open questions referring to different aspects of ICTs, including ownership, access, needs, use, problem-solving, satisfaction, etc. Overall, participants were encouraged to discuss the role of different media technologies in their everyday lives. The capabilities approach takes an individual needs-centered approach to propose tailored enablers to the constraints individuals have. By diving into deep descriptions of the usage focusing on needs and problem-solving, we believe we were able to uncover, in interviewees’ own words, what their desired functionings were and what capabilities they needed, therefore, to realise.

The interviews lasted between one and two hours (mean = 1:19). They were audiotaped, transcribed verbatim, and translated to Hebrew for the analysis, conducted by the Hebrew-speaking authors of this paper in consultation with the bilingual research assistant. Each participant was given 150 NIS (approximately 45 USD) as compensation at the end of the interview.

The interviewees, aged 19-43, were recruited using purposeful and snowball sampling. Given the relatively large homogeneity within the Bedouin community – concerning such characteristics as socioeconomic status, living conditions, availability of ICTs, language, and culture – it seems reasonable to assume that the sample provides a good source for an in-depth understanding of the community. This assumption is supported by the saturation reached during the analysis, as new codes and categories no longer emerged and responses began to repeat (Braun et al. 2018; Goldberg, Yeshua-Katz, and Marciano 2022).

We analyzed the transcripts using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-phase reflexive thematic analysis, a qualitative strategy for identifying, organising, and classifying insights into patterns (Braun and Clarke 2012). This approach “emphasizes meaning as contextual or situated [and] reality or realities as multiple” (Braun et al. 2018, 6), rendering it particularly apposite for analyzing interview data (Braun, Clarke, and Rance 2015; Marciano 2022). In the first phase of the analysis, familiarisation with the data, the researchers seek intriguing expressions and casual remarks that echo the research questions and might add depth to the subsequent systematic coding. In the second phase of generating codes, the researchers attach explicit labels to different units (words, clauses, sentences, claims, and stories) more systematically to identify initial meaning throughout the dataset. We used inductive coding, a bottom-up strategy in which the analytic process originates in the data rather than in predefined categories or frames. The phase of constructing themes refers to merging similar codes into orderly and coherent clusters of meaning that illuminate a particular part of the dataset. In the subsequent two phases, reviewing and defining themes, the researchers retest the themes and confirm, refine, or redefine them. The final phase of report production aims to tell the complicated story of the data. Numbers in parentheses represent the participants, who are listed in Appendix 1, with basic demographic information.

Analysis and Findings

The analysis illuminates the tensions and contradictions that characterise the overall digital experiences of Bedouin ICT users in Israel. Specifically, we present two primary findings. The first is that smartphones are disproportionally central to our Bedouin participants’ lives relative to other ICTs, rendering the goods in their media landscapes quite distinctive. The second is that despite the shortfall of objective infrastructure, participants own diverse ICTs, are digitally confident and proficient, and, most importantly, enjoy good and satisfying outcomes. In other words, participants found ways to realise capabilities despite the lack of goods.

We argue that as a result, the study participants’ unique digital experience, with its tensions and contradictions, offers a fresh look at the digital divide concept. We posit that the perspective of the capabilities approach allows us to reformulate our definition of the divide as one of capabilities rather than one of goods. What we now term “the capabilities divide” is a divide between those who can realise their desired capabilities through the utilisation of ICTs and those who cannot. It should not be narrowed down to the divide between those who own ICTs and those who do not own them or between those who know how to use ICTs for externally defined functions and those who do not.

Between Infrastructure, Access, Skills, and Outcomes

Israel’s Bedouin population faces significant infrastructure challenges, as detailed in the literature review. Such challenges were evident in the interviews, as many participants’ households rely on solar power for electricity and lack basic internet infrastructure (e.g. 8, 9, 23, 24). However, although these infrastructural barriers are crucial to people’s ability to realise their needs in the spirit of traditional digital divide theories, a nuanced look at participants’ experiences through the capabilities approach changes the picture.

Indeed, the unrecognised Bedouin villages in Israel lack appropriate electricity and telecommunications infrastructure. However, the interviewees did not stress this limitation in their own volition. In fact, they were more prone to discussing access to and ownership of various technologies, and even more so, to their advanced digital skills and satisfying outcomes.

Most participants own a variety of new ICTs, and more importantly, they generally report that they have every technology they need and desire, claiming that they are not denied any online service. Thus, the interviewees identify the goods that are available to them differently than in the way the interviewers or readers who are not members of their community may view them. The interviewees also determine that they reach the functionings they want as the technologies they own provide them with the capabilities they wish to realise and enable them to do so.

Most participants were indifferent to the limitations of ICT characteristics prevalent in the interviewers’ eyes due to the inferior infrastructure available to them. The interviews suggest that this stems from their ability to define what capabilities they wish to have and to what functioning. For example, all participants were asked about electricity and internet connection. Thus, while Nasira stated that her house is connected to electricity, when we delved deeper into the issue, she explained that they rely on solar energy that provides them with 24/7 electricity. And yet, she uses different networked technologies, including a smartphone, laptop, desktop, and tablet (8). Similarly, Faisal instinctively replied “yes” when we asked about electricity, but later explained: “I bought a private system consisting of a solar panel, batteries, connectors, and a charge controller large enough to provide 24/7 electricity” (23). He also reported that the village does not have regular internet infrastructure, but he still owns and uses various networked technologies and “enjoys high-speed internet” through his mobile phone (23). Like Nasira and Faisal, Kazem uses various communication technologies but explains that using his mobile phone as a hotspot is the only way to use the internet on his laptop because his village lacks established internet infrastructure (24). This tension between a clear infrastructural deficit and advanced use of various technologies characterises most participants; it is not the experience most Israelis have with regards to connectivity, as previous studies have demonstrated (i.e. Abu-Kaf, Schejter, and Jafar 2019), but it is very typical to the Bedouin population. In other words, the perceived characteristics of electricity and functionality of ICTs were present, even though an outsider to the community would not have deduced that.

Among our 25 participants, only one – a 38-year-old female, illiterate widow – did not use networked devices. Out of the remaining 24 participants, all own smartphones, 20 own computers, and slightly more than half own tablets. Only two participants did not use computers due to perceived incompetency (14, 16). More importantly, 20 of the 24 interviewees replied that they have every technology they need and want.

In terms of self-perceived capabilities and functionings, participants reported that they were digitally independent and had the capability to utilise ICTs. Lara never asks for help because she is “in control of every digital task related to her work” (3); Mona and Afif also do not look for guidance because the former “has the knowledge required to find what she needs” (6) and the latter is “open to technology, masters it well, and likes to experiment” himself (4). Participants make a nuanced distinction between different goods, identifying their relevant characteristics. Iyad explains that he uses his smartphone to read and search for information when he is in a hurry but “sits with his laptop” when he is not short of time (1). Mona uses her tablet to watch content because “it’s not that comfortable to use it for Office [apps]” (6). Azmi explains that “if you look for a theory or a presentation, you should do it with a laptop, because you can easily use Office to edit it, but if you look for “small information,” your phone will suffice” (9). Third, they use different online search strategies and know how to refine their searches according to the results (3, 9, 10, 19). For example, Lara and Azmi change languages from Arabic to Hebrew to English when they cannot find satisfying information (3 and 9, respectively). Amer searches for “very specific things” on Facebook rather than Google (5), and Abbas uses YouTube for “visual information” such as CrossFit workouts (7). Above all, most participants reported that they had the capabilities to master the internet and that they always, or almost always, succeeded in achieving their desired online functionings (e.g. 1,4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 19).

The Central Role of Smartphones in Participants’ Everyday Lives

The most noticeable pattern emerging from the interviews is mobile phones’ central, even disproportional role in realising online capabilities. This pattern is supported by two sub-patterns reflecting the relatively limited role of computers (PCs and laptops) as a medium serving work and studies-related capabilities and the superseding of television as a medium serving entertainment functionings. Together, these patterns illuminate the participants’ quite distinctive media landscape, which serves to help them realise their capabilities.

All participants but one had a smartphone, whose significance in realising their capabilities was communicated unequivocally, implicitly and explicitly. Following the demographic section, we first asked, “which communication technologies do you use routinely?” to identify the available goods. Most participants concisely replied, “a smartphone” (e.g. 3, 7, 9, 16, 17, 18) or “a smartphone and a computer” (e.g. 8, 19, 22, 23, 25), and fewer mentioned their smartphone first in a list of several other goods (e.g. 5, 6). However, when we asked participants to provide a more comprehensive list of goods in use, they easily broadened their lists to include a laptop, TV, radio, and tablet. We suggest that the spontaneous and inattentive prioritisation of the smartphone in participants’ answers attests to its relative eminence within their media landscape.

Apart from the implicit prioritisation of the smartphone, participants expressed its importance to their routines by indicating a variety of capabilities we have identified in previous studies (i.e. Schejter and others, 2023; Shomron and Schejter, 2020, 2021, 2022), including to be informed, to be secure, and to enjoy. These capabilities are reflected in various contexts of use, including news consumption; information seeking; maintenance of social ties, which takes place primarily through social networking sites; emailing; using online services such as bank, transportation, post office, and medical services; communications with state authorities such as the National Insurance Institute or the Ministry of the Interior; and leisure, mostly gaming and content watching (e.g. 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 21). These different capabilities realised across various contexts reflect the smartphones’ central role in participants’ realities. However, the interviews also suggest that smartphones have become digital companions beyond their practical or purposeful uses. For example, in responding to our request to describe their daily routines, several participants told us that when they return home from work, they “just sit with the phone” for several hours before going to bed (e.g. 14, 15, 17) or “use the device 24/7, as long as I am awake” (23).

The smartphone’s role in the users’ routines is better understood in relation to the role of other ICTs in realising capabilities. A first sub-pattern emerging from the interviews suggests that against the encompassing role of smartphones, personal computers have a surprisingly limited role. Interviewees generally perceived computers as a purposeful tool for realising the capability to work (i.e. desk job) and study, as opposed to leisure. This perception of computers seems to guide, at least partly, their usage patterns, as they consistently portrayed a clear distinction between computers and smartphones’ functionalities, both practically and normatively (e.g. 5, 7, 11, 15, 18). It thus seems that computers play less of a role in the realisation of communication-related capabilities as we have defined them.

Participants who own a computer use it for work and study almost exclusively (except for three who also use it to watch movies), while mobile phones are linked to everything else, as detailed above. When we asked participants whether and to what extent their computer is important to them, one replied “it’s not important to my day-to-day life, as opposed to my smartphone, so it doesn’t really affect my life, but it is crucial for my work” (3), and another explained that “computers are essential for those studying in academia” (10). A third participant, Jude, told us that “it is important to have a computer in the house even for non-students” (22). By challenging the limited, almost agreed-upon role of computers as a studying tool, Jude actually confirmed it.

Another sub-pattern we identified refers to televisions’ minor, almost symbolic-ritualistic role in participants’ lives, limiting the capabilities they help realise almost exclusively for enjoyment. Most participants do not or seldom watch TV, which in many cases serves their children alone. A common theme running across the interviews suggests that the act of passively consuming audiovisual content – from entire movies and TV series to live sports events – has gradually moved from TVs to computers to mobile phones, as Abbas witnesses: “two years ago, I still used to watch movies and TV series on my computer, but today I have a wide-screen smartphone, so I use it for watching” (7).

Many participants report that their mobile phone is the only medium through which they consume audiovisual content, explicitly stating that it supplanted their TVs’ usage (e.g. 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 19, 25). For example, Suheil claims that he has turned on the TV only once in the past year since he moved to his new apartment (15). The superseding of TV is best reflected in the following quote by Lara: “I sometimes watch movies on my laptop because it has a larger screen” (3). In this case, she compares her laptop to the smartphone, which serves as the default medium for watching, thus completely dismissing TV from its traditional role. This pattern, in which computers and smartphones compete on this role while TVs are left out, was explicitly expressed by several other participants (e.g. 7). Interestingly, for many, TV watching has become a ritualistic activity. For example, Mona regularly uses her smartphone for news consumption but turns her TV on only in cases of emergencies (6); and Lara never watches TV by herself, but every evening she sits with her parents in front of the TV – “they watch and I’m using my phone” (3).

Overall, smartphones constitute the leading and most important technology in realising participants’ communication capabilities. In contrast, computers are used by several participants and deemed useful in specific capabilities – to learn and to make a living – and televisions are much less central, serving mostly the capability to enjoy. Other technologies – mostly radios, landlines, and tablets – are perceived as dispensable by the few who use them. Specifically, most participants do not own or use a landline, they listen to a radio only in the car (e.g. 7), and if they own a tablet, it is usually for their children. Iyad explained that he owns multiple technologies, but the smartphone overweighs all others “because it has everything in it” (1). Mona told us that she uses her landline only to locate her smartphone when it’s lost (6).

As reflected in the above patterns, participants’ media landscapes illuminate the realisation of communication capabilities by Israeli Bedouin, which is shaped by the interplay between three core components: infrastructural barriers, actual access to and ownership of communication technologies, and good digital skills and outcomes. What it presents to us is a new paradigm: Instead of counting goods – ICTs and the means to access them – and instead of testing whether possessors of ICTs can perform tasks predefined by society, what can serve as a measure for the existence of a divide between have and have-nots is the divide between those capable and incapable of realising desired functionings.

The Importance of Cultural Context: The Case of Religiosity

To further stress our suggested approach, we believe one more observation needs to be added to the fray – one rooted within a community’s cultural context. Our findings demonstrate that in the case of our interviewees, one component – religiosity – helps demonstrate the importance of cultural context to assess whether an individual feels their capabilities are realised.

Religion plays a significant role in most interviewees’ everyday lives. Although we did not focus on or even mention religion during the interviews, it came up by most participants. For example, many of them incidentally mentioned their prayer schedule in response to our request to describe their daily routines (e.g. 4, 5, 7, 21). The interviews made it clear that the study participants are religious, and this seems to shape their approach to the role of technology and the internet in realising their capabilities. For many, religion defines whether, which, and how technologies should be used and, most importantly, which types of usage should be in/visible to others.

Participants described how ICTs are part and parcel of their religious routines. For example, they explained that many of their online searches focus on Islamic queries (e.g. 2, 4, 22, 23, 24), that their car radios are regularly tuned to the Quran channel (3, 9, 10, 15, 23), and that they use prayer timing apps (24). Others reported avoiding “specific websites” (2, 17, 20), such as porn (21, 23) or specific apps such as Instagram (7) and spying apps (9) due to religious prohibitions. It seems that expressing one’s faith is a central capability to Bedouin users of the Negev, in addition to the list of capabilities identified in our previous research.

Our interviewees have demonstrated how ICTs serve the realisation of that capability. We asked participants, “how do you define and perceive the internet?”, seeking to identify the constraints on their usage. We found that many responses shared a common feature: a judgmental approach to technology. Among their responses, they replied that the internet is “a huge source of information, both positive and negative” (1), “a world of knowledge that provides you with answers to everything you need, positively and negatively, depending on you” (4), and “a working tool to communicate with the outer world, it is a world in itself, both positive and negative” (23). We asked Adib, who no longer uses a computer, what he thinks about people who use computers, and he replied that “some of them use it for positive purposes and others for negative ones” (2). Similarly, Iyad believes that “nowadays it is hard to trust technology […] it does more harm than good” (1).

These responses suggest that interviewees’ stances were highly judgmental towards technology, although our question was neutral and did not encourage critical evaluations. It seems that this approach to the technology serves as a constraint from utilising it. To realise capabilities through the utilisation of technology, the interviewees had to place that behaviour in the proper religious context. The following quote by Lara, among several other similar expressions, demonstrates that such a judgmental approach may be linked to the “I have nothing to hide” line of reasoning to the extent that it influences usage patterns:

I’m not deterred by the computer because I know how I should use it. I have nothing to hide. Some people set a password because they are deterred. When I had a computer, I didn’t set a password and had no secrets. For me, the computer is open and exposed, I know how I use it and where I surf (3).

Ironically, Lara’s (undeterred) use of computers is made possible and legitimised by a social constraint. She is not deterred because she follows unwritten guidelines restricting free and unlimited use. While she did not mention religion as a constraint, she feels accountable for her online activity. Precisely due to fear of inappropriate use in a religious society, she chooses to be an open book, although setting a password for a personal device is highly acceptable.

Lara’s undeterred yet limited use of the internet demonstrates that religion plays a significant role in users’ ability to function or in determining their desire to realise specific capabilities rather than the full range of the opportunities available to them. Participants’ religiosity is only a single component in a large array of cultural circumstances (e.g. residing in relatively small spaces with many family members) that render smaller, mobile, and personal devices (as opposed to immobile, shared devices) more appealing. It is simultaneously a constraint and an enabler of realising capabilities through ICTs.

Discussion: Between the Digital Divide and the Capabilities Approach

The interviews exposed the unique digital experiences of Bedouin users in Israel. The findings demonstrate that: (1) Israeli Bedouins’ life circumstances define their approach to technology, determine their ability to function and their desire to realise specific capabilities in a way that differentiates them from the average ICT user in Israel, and probably in other Western countries. We focused on religiosity to demonstrate the importance of cultural context as both a constraint and an enabler; (2) participants’ media landscape is characterised by the central role of smartphones compared to other technologies: smartphones provide the realisation of most communication capabilities, computers’ role is associated with learning and working, television’s use is confined to enjoyment, and other communication technologies are deemed dispensable; (3) assessment of the three traditional digital divide components – access, skills, and outcomes – reveals the uniqueness of the realisation of communication capabilities among the Bedouin: despite a significant infrastructural deficit, most participants own diverse communication technologies, they use them widely and wisely in different contexts, they are digitally comfortable and confident, and satisfied with the outcomes. In other words, while Israeli Bedouins are not provided with fair and equal infrastructure and they rely heavily on mobile phones, the importance of digital communications for the realisation of certain capabilities has led them to use the technologies they have access to in the context of their life circumstances and within the constraints.

According to traditional digital divide criteria, Bedouin users in Israel are easily categorised as on the wrong side of the divide simply because they score low on fundamental questions such as “do you use a personal computer?” or “do you have a stable high-speed internet connection?” While we acknowledge these criteria's relevance and importance, we argue that the tensions and contradictions characterising our Bedouin participants’ digital experiences challenge basic digital divide assumptions, thus inviting complementary reassessment through the capabilities approach. This approach encourages societies to aspire to close the gap between people’s needs and their ability to realise them, rather than between their needs and a societal definition of an ideal reality. The interviews with Israeli Bedouin users have pointed out different needs for which ICT use should be evaluated.

It is important to note that this is not a call for neglecting and discriminating against communities, definitely not ones that are characterised by poverty, low standards of living, and neglect of educational and cultural needs. To the contrary, we determine that any corrective measures aimed at bettering the economic and infrastructural position of such communities should address their individual needs and constraints. However, the conversion factors provided to them should be relevant to their self-defined capabilities if we first focus on their well-being and only next on ownership of goods.

Juxtaposing the digital divide concept with the capabilities approach allows us to also bridge between the competing approaches of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum regarding the definition of capabilities, as the former believes capabilities to be an open category and the latter supports prescribing a closed list of minimal capabilities. Following the latter, we suggest taking what is commonly thought to be objective criteria seriously, assuming that despite being free agents, users are not always aware of the full range of opportunities they can but choose not to realise. Therefore, policy-driven infrastructural development is important even if users can overcome existing deficits to the extent that they do not experience them as impeding obstacles. On the other hand, following Sen’s stance, we suggest focusing on users’ lived experiences, needs, and desires to design a user-centered communication policy based on developing a concept of achievable communication capabilities.

The limitations of this study should be stated before we move on to our policy recommendations. The results of interviewing a purposive sample of an understudied community that is hard to reach should be analyzed carefully and humbly. The focus on the literate and young to middle-aged adults leaves room to find more, perhaps other experiences, when listening to the youth born into the digital era or the elders whom it may have overpassed.

To put these competing notions into practice, we perceive users’ overreliance on smartphones as a reasonable compromise at best, because these devices are limited compared to computers, at least in particular contexts, and therefore leapfrogging should be understood as a constraint. However, once people’s life circumstances prioritise certain technologies over others (e.g. smartphones vs. computers), an institutional effort should be made to maximise the opportunities and benefits available by these technologies. For example, state authorities are responsible for allowing convenient and beneficial access to online services through smartphones, inter alia, by ensuring smartphone-compatible designs of official websites and universal connectivity. In this case, closing the gap does not necessarily require a shift in users’ habits and behaviours, such as the provision of new technologies or improving their digital skills; it can also be pursued on the end of authorities by adapting services to users’ needs. In other words, given the importance of realising capabilities, shrinking the gap at the user level can be cheaper and more feasible than addressing it at the infrastructure level. Indeed, such a solution can be discriminatory towards a population that is entitled to equal rights, including the right to communicate, but given that the ultimate aim of the policy is communication itself – which is the capability that the study participants aspire to realise – practical and quick solutions may be used as stopgaps until full infrastructural differences are bridged. Moreover, participants’ usage patterns, shaped by particular life circumstances, reflect digital diversity (Helsper 2021) rather than a digital divide. This diversity demonstrates how Bedouin users learned to navigate through particular life circumstances to find solutions that allow them to realise their needs. Therefore, from a capabilities perspective, leapfrogging can be seen, at least partly, as an enabling strategy to realise needs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Israel Ministry of Science, Technology and Space: [Grant Number 3-13585].

Notes on contributors

Avi Marciano

Avi Marciano, PhD, is a senior lecturer at the Department of Communication Studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Avi’s work focuses on social, political, and ethical aspects of surveillance as well as new media use by LGBTQ people.

Amit M. Schejter

Amit M. Schejter is professor of communication studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and visiting professor and co-director of the Institute for Information Policy at the Bellisario College of Communication at Penn State. He is co-author of Digital Capabilities: ICT Adoption in Marginalized Communities in Israel and the West Bank (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).

Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar

Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar is a senior lecturer at Sapir Academic College in Sderot, Israel, where she teaches courses on research methods, communication, religion, and gender. She is also a scholar at the Israel Democracy Institute, where she studies media usage among the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. Her research addresses the tensions between religious values and new technologies among women in Old Order Amish and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. She is the author of “Strictly Observant: Amish and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Women Negotiating Media” (Rutgers University Press, 2024).