Rural Digital Inclusion
Our Rural Digital Inclusion project was a community-led research project across five rural West Midlands communities to identify the real barriers to digital inclusion (especially for older people 60+), co-produce solutions with them, and generate evidence and media outputs for policymakers.
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Current datasets and research on digital inclusion systematically fail to capture the unique challenges faced by rural communities. While the University of Liverpool's Minimum Digital Living Standard report provides valuable insights, suggesting that rural location doesn't necessarily correlate with poorer broadband speed, this surface-level observation masks the complex reality rural residents face daily. This project addresses a critical evidence gap by conducting a community-led investigation into genuine barriers preventing rural digital inclusion across the UK.
Our short documentary voiced by project participants captures the real challenges faced by rural communities in regards to digital access and inclusion, the community mapping documents the services; the community mapping identifies the assets, resources, connectors, and infrastructure
conditions that shape digital inclusion across five parish boundary areas and the data report provides an analysis of our rural digital inclusion research and offers recommendation and practical co-produced solutions.
About the project.
Read the research.
Read the research report
n this document, we report on an analysis of rural digital inclusion research by Rural Media, carried out between January and March 2026.
