DIGITAL COMMUNICATION IN SCIENTIFIC PRACTICES: LIMITATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES FOR EQUALITY

Information and communication technologies have been distributed unequally across countries, reproducing existing patterns of power inequalities around the world. In the present work we analyze the uses of digital technologies of the academic community in Latin America, its functions, limitations and potentialities. This, with the purpose of building a common framework that allows for the mediation of technologies in the production of knowledge and the development of equitable collaborative networks. We have analyzed 18 interviews with researchers from Latin American technology universities and made a thematic content analysis. We have evidenced that digital technologies act as necessary infrastructure for: (a) the creation of networks between professionals and institutions in order to overcome material difficulties; (b) the search and accumulation of information; (c) the production of knowledge and the improvement of competitive capacity; (d) dissemination and increase of the visibility of research results. Despite having evidenced difficulties in each of the four points analyzed, digital transformation opens new scenarios that allow to establish spaces of collaboration and production of knowledge, some of which could help to democratize scientific practice in precarious territories.