A Little-Known Aspect of Digital Mediation: Recruiting Disadvantaged Audiences

• CSR
• Digital equality
• Sciences humaines

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Numerous reports estimate that between 10% and 40% of the French population struggles with digital technology, depending on the year and the wording used. For example, in 2025, according to Arcep, Arcom, CGE, and ANCT [Baromètre du numérique, 2026 edition, French, PDF], “four out of ten French people still encounter obstacles that prevent them from using digital technology on a daily basis” and “22% cite a lack of proficiency with the tools (+3 points in one year).” While seniors are particularly affected, the problem is not just generational, and younger people’s ease with smartphones sometimes hides their difficulties with PCs. According to INSEE, 55% of 60-75-year-olds lack digital skills according to European indicators, as do 23% of 16–44-year-olds (INSEE, 2026). To better reach those in difficulty, Orange has redoubled its efforts in its inclusion policy. In addition to a policy of expanding access to connectivity and equipment (for example, with social offers such as Coup de Pouce), initiatives have been stepped up since the pandemic to offer more digital mediation . This involves providing spaces for support in using technology, through information but also through workshops (both in person and online) on how to use tools and share best practices, particularly in the areas of cybersecurity and privacy [https://ateliersnumeriques.orange.fr/]. Strengthening mediation services involves two perspectives. In the aftermath of the pandemic, it responds first and foremost to the shift of many tasks online, both in personal and professional life. Since then, it has also faced the growing problem of “inappropriate” uses (in particular, practices that are dangerous for the protection of individuals and their data). To help the Group reach a wider audience, our study looked at the dynamics of the encounter between those receiving support and those providing it. How, in practical terms, does the encounter between people in difficulty and mediators trained to help them happen? To answer this question, the study lifts the veil on a little-known aspect of digital mediation work. It shows how mediators rely on partners to recruit a diverse range of people (of varying ages, with different educational backgrounds and levels of employment) and how they use their ingenuity to overcome people’s barriers and encourage them to engage in sustainable learning.

Working people without children or social assistance often remain isolated from digital mediation structures.

A survey of professionals caught between autonomy mediation and repair mediation

To better understand the people receiving digital support, our survey was conducted in the aftermath of the 2020 lockdown, among professionals who volunteered during lockdown to answer the national Solidarité Numérique [Digital Solidarity] hotline – a system set up with government support by Mednum, the national cooperative of digital inclusion stakeholders. We conducted in-depth interviews with twenty of these volunteers about their experience as digital mediators. The interviews were conducted via videoconference, transcribed in full, and analyzed after coding using MaxQDA software.

Based on a socio-historical approach to mediation, our analysis first showed that there are two forms of digital support work: autonomy mediation and repair mediation [see Borelle, Pharabod, Peugeot, 2022]. Autonomy mediation is rooted in popular education, with the aim of increasing people’s capacity to act. Repair mediation is a matter of emergency, which arose from the digitization of administrative procedures and aims to prevent the loss of social rights and isolation. At the turn of the 2020s, with the Covid crisis and the acceleration of the digitization of procedures, repair mediation is tending to relegate autonomy mediation to the background.

The activities of the mediators surveyed also vary depending on the structures to which the professionals are attached. Some respondents work in Digital Public Spaces (EPN), others in France Services (FS) reception centers, and still others in media libraries or at the Orange Solidarité foundation, etc.

Beyond this diversity of structures, the survey shows that digital mediation needs to build its audience. In fact, few people spontaneously approach mediators to be trained in the use of tools. In addition to individual guidance, our analysis shows that mediators work to identify channels for recruiting people in difficulty and to guide groups (e.g., France Travail beneficiaries) toward digital skills development. This work is based on three levers: destigmatizing people in difficulty, referring them to digital mediation, and transforming them into learners. The survey thus shows the complexity of the paths that mediators are building to ensure that the general public’s skills development is effective.

Destigmatizing people in difficulty

The professionals surveyed repeatedly emphasize that all segments of the population are now affected. Of course, the problems remain more acute for people in socially vulnerable situations (those with precarious incomes, migrants, the unemployed, etc.) [see Granjon, 2022]. But despite the increased availability of tools, no group is immune to the difficulties of using digital technology. Erwann, coordinator of a Public digital space, points out: “Some people who until now considered themselves literate and educated, who studied in France, are in fact among those who are digitally illiterate .” Gentiane, from the Ligue de l’enseignement, explains that “people over 70 are very far removed from it, because it’s not their world,” but that young people “don’t know how to do much on a computer.”

All our respondents insist on deconstructing assumptions of incompetence and identifying the emotions of a public that is “ashamed to admit they don’t know how to do something,” that is “afraid of doing it wrong,” or even that is “angry” about the digitization of procedures and the instability of the tools they need to master [see Pharabod, Borelle, 2025]. Rather than focusing on socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender, socio-professional category, etc.), mediators readily describe the audience they support through the uniqueness of each situation: a father who wants to obtain a scholarship for his middle school daughter, a woman who is learning to connect her tablet to her smartphone to compensate for the lack of connectivity in her valley, a panicked non-internet user who goes to the media library to replace his lost documents, etc. Their job is to identify distress and determine the need for support without stigmatizing people.

Recruiting people who need support

One of the difficulties faced by digital mediators is recruiting people who are committed to learning how to use digital tools, rather than those who only want occasional help with a specific task. However, it is the latter who most often come to mediation centers on their own initiative: to media libraries, local public services (social services centers, or FS points). As Stéphane, an FS mediator, explains: “We have our regulars who come every month to do their paperwork (…) who have no computer skills and don’t want any. There are a lot of them.”

Active recruitment of people to support is carried out “without waiting for the client to walk through the door” (Gael, unemployment mediator). This is done in two ways. On the one hand, mobile mediators repeatedly set up in public spaces in areas known to be in difficulty, priority neighborhoods for urban policies, or rural areas, to carry out digital awareness-raising activities in shared gardens, at the foot of public housing buildings, or even in mobile buses. On the other hand, and more often than not, mediators recruit the public to be supported by partners. A diverse range of people are thus referred to them by third parties: France Travail, the prefecture, the family allowance fund, organizations for people with disabilities, and other services responsible for the social inclusion of people in difficulty, who are often inactive and not particularly keen to improve their digital skills. Among these pre-established groups, a large proportion are also young people referred by local missions, educational success programs, or family associations such as Familles rurales and the Union départementale des Associations Familiales (UDAF). These pre-established groups are sometimes more compelled than eager to participate.

On this point of recruitment, two lessons from the survey are worth noting. Firstly, the recruitment channels described by mediators are more often linked to individual, local networks than to long-term, national institutional partnerships. As a result, the success of many initiatives remain confined to a given area, and funding for these remains ad hoc. Secondly, the audiences recruited are often those involved in social welfare services, which means that working people who struggle with digital technology often remain off the radar of structures offering mediation. The provision of workshops for parents (focusing on issues of digital parenting) is now opening mediation beyond the field of social welfare recipients. However, working people without children and without social welfare support often remain isolated from digital mediation programs. These findings are important to consider in order to expand mediation initiatives both in the context of public policy and the digital inclusion policies of large groups such as Orange.

Using cunning to engage people in a learning posture

To build a digitally supported audience, a third critical action is to put people who have been recruited because of their difficulties in a learning posture. This action is based on three levers. The first lever towards learning is to negotiate the scope of support, avoiding focusing solely on social support and shifting the focus towards a more general increase in digital skills. Isabelle, a media library facilitator, explains: “We’ve done training courses on how to write a resume, for example. Not the content, but the form. In other words, how to use a word processor.” However, the expectations of all parties are sometimes difficult to reconcile. Pascal, an independent mediator, points out: “The sponsors have an objective (…) Pôle Emploi’s objective is to ensure that people are able to update their status independently.” Whereas to encourage a learning posture, the mediator will often need the help of a leisure activity. Photography or cooking activities are then designed as pretexts for addressing the sending of emails and the transfer of attachments. The case of support for administrative tasks is ambivalent: the subject matter is useful to work on, but it is not conducive to learning. While administrative difficulties can be used as a “hook” to offer digital mediation, the attitude of people who are “forced to think,” to use the expression of one respondent, is counterproductive. In addition, administrative matters are very sensitive to error and feed the fear of doing something wrong.

The second lever consists of working on the skills to be learned while paying attention to the emotions that block engagement in an independent use of digital technology. This involves transforming the fear or humiliation of not knowing how to do something by showing people what they already know how to do with tools they are familiar with, for example, learning how to send emails from a smartphone rather than a computer. The professionals surveyed describe their ability to take detours and use cunning as central to their work. It allows them to engage learners in motivating activities that sometimes make the digital aspect invisible at first. Gentiane, from the Ligue de l’enseignement, explains the success of her fablab’s digital embroidery machine: “They don’t realize they’re using digital technology when they’re embroidering.”

Finally, incorporating digital mediation initiatives into group activities is a third lever for learning. By proposing to introduce digital activities into a pre-existing social fabric (e.g., a cooking class for residents of the same neighborhood), mediators aim to foster collective dynamics of mutual aid that will sustainably support the empowerment of participants.

These results are useful for evaluating inclusion initiatives against broader criteria than simply quantifying the populations targeted for digital mediation encounters. They encourage the promotion of projects that take into account the need for detours through non-essential activities and the collective dimension of tool use.

Lessons learned and prospects

The survey finds that there is no natural connection between an audience seeking to improve their skills and digital mediators whose task is to support them in this endeavor. On the contrary, it reveals that mediators have to work hard to build their audience. This work is carried out on three levels. The audience receiving digital support is recruited from other organizations (most often from various fields of social intervention). To redirect this audience away from the difficulties they encounter and towards autonomous digital use, mediators constantly work to destigmatize beneficiaries. Rather than addressing limiting dispositions, they highlight the blocking emotions. Finally, they negotiate and use cunning to adjust the means and objectives of digital mediation to the people actually recruited and to encourage their commitment to a posture of empowerment.

The work of Orange’s sociologists provides several insights into the direction of digital inclusion policies. In particular, it highlights a potential opening towards new audiences, namely working people without children, who are currently largely overlooked by digital support recruitment networks. Furthermore, by demonstrating the importance of local, long-term, networked efforts to recruit participants, the study also calls for support for partnerships that offer digital mediation tailored to the local context, with professionals who are rooted in the local community and trained in the educational skills described. Finally, to provide a reliable assessment of the impact of the initiatives supported, it is essential to consider the sustainability of learning over time and not just the breadth of enrollment in one-off meetings.

This text has been translated by an artificial intelligence.