Exclusão digital e exclusão social: elementos para uma discussão

Abstract: This paper analytically describes and interprets the role performed by the new Information and Communication Technologies in the recent globalization process. This evaluation encompasses the complex of world´s economy and, in particular, that of Brazil. The project´s guiding hypothesis presumes that the new Information and Communication Technologies tend to amplify the social exclusion pattern already existing at the current historical period of the Capitalism. Besides, it assumes that those technologies reproduce, in amplified forms, the asymmetries existing among the countries, which are promoted by the economic globalization process. This study also alerts to the strategic role invested in the access to information, as promoted by the new Information and Communication Technologies, and emphasizes how the digital exclusion develops new forms of social exclusion.