Holding the line online: exploring wired relationships for people with disabilities

Clearly, the Internet represents a huge new step in interpersonal communications. It offers people with disabilities the possibility of confronting the issues of time, space, communication and the body, but what happens when people with disabilities engage with the computer? Do they use the Internet to develop friendships and intimate relationships? Does online communication enhance self‐identity and social being? Do people use the Internet to transcend the vagaries of their frail and vulnerable bodies? Or are they simply ‘holding the line’ online, using the Internet as they would use a letter or a telephone? Is the Internet a chimera, a failed promise, for people with disabilities?     

The disability divide in internet access and use

The increasing spread of the Internet holds much potential for enhancing opportunities for people with disabilities. However, scarce evidence exists to suggest that people with disabilities are, in fact, participating in these new developments. Will the spread of information technologies (IT) increase equality by offering opportunities for people with disabilities? Or will a growing reliance on IT lead to more inequality by leaving behind certain portions of the population including people with disabilities? In this paper, the authors draw on nationally representative data regarding Americans' Internet uses to (1) identify the extent to which people with disabilities are embracing use of the Internet; (2) how their use of the Internet compares with the Internet uses of the rest of the population; (3) how having a disability relates to and interacts with other social statuses (e.g. socioeconomic status, age, gender) with regard to Internet use; and (4) what explains these trends. They draw on representative data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census of the United States to answer these questions. It is found that people with disabilities are less likely to live in households with computers, are less likely to use computers and are less likely to be online. However, once socioeconomic background is controlled for, it is found that people with hearing disabilities and those who have limited walking ability are not less likely to be Internet users. This research enables a deeper understanding of both the use of the Internet by people with disabilities and the spread of new IT more generally.     

Belohnungen und Bestrafungen im Netz: Verhaltenskontrolle in Chat-Foren

It is often lamented that the anonymity and physical distance of the Internet prevent effective punishment for antisocial behavior such as insulting, racist or sexist comments. It is thus claimed that anomie regins on the Internet. However, if we look at individual Internet forums and the virtual groups which frequent them, it becomes evident that behavioral rules are often explicated and a row of rewards and punishments are used for behavioral control. With the help of systematic behavioral observations, analysis of documents and field experiments in 24 selected chat forums in the IRC and WWW this study examines how people use technical and social sanctions to control each other’s behavior in computer-mediated communication. Boundaries and possibilities of behavioral control on the Internet are of interest both for those who use chat forums as well as for those who offer chat forums. Accordingly, practical consequences of the results of the study are discussed with special consideration given to the danger of abuse of power.     

Reconfiguring Friendships: Social relationships and the Internet

Debate on the social role of the Internet has centred on whether its use will tend to isolate or connect individuals, undermining or reinforcing social ties. This study moves away from this focus on more or less connectivity to explore the degree to which people use the Internet to make new friends and, thereby, reconfigure their social networks. The analysis identifies those who create new ties through the Internet and investigates under what conditions these online ties migrate to face to face settings. The analysis is based on data from the 2005 Oxford Internet Survey (OxIS), a national probability sample survey of individuals aged 14 and over in Britain. The findings indicate that about 20 per cent of Internet users have met new friends online, and about half of these individuals go on to meet one or more of these virtual friends in person. Sociodemographic characteristics, such as being single, shape patterns of Internet use, and are related to the greater propensity of some individuals to make online social relationships. However, experience with the Internet and the ways people choose to use the Internet, such as for chatting or communicating more generally, are most directly associated with who makes new connections over the Internet and who does not. These findings suggest that the Internet plays an important role in reconfiguring the social networks of many users. Also, multivariate analyses indicate that the dynamics of online friendships are driven more by the idiosyncratic digital choices made by users of the Internet than by any mechanistic social or technological determinism.     

An Exploratory Study of Older Adults' Engagement with Virtual Volunteerism

Virtual volunteering refers to the use of the Internet for volunteer services. It is an emerging phenomenon among every age group; however, the current study examines if it is a viable option for older people. Older adults are the fastest growing Internet users. They are also more civic minded than younger generations, thus the purpose of this study is to explore this relatively new area research. Data for this study have been collected using qualitative tools such as semistructured, partly open-ended interviews with older virtual volunteers affiliated with SeniorNet, an organization that facilitates virtual volunteering exclusively for older people. The study ends with suggestions for future research directions. Implications of this study include reconceptualization of virtual volunteering as a strategic tool to recruit older adults and greater usage of information communication technologies to promote civic engagement among older people and, thus, positively influence their health and well-being.     

Potential of the Net to Construct and Convey Ethnic and National Identities: Comparison of the Use in the Sri Lankan Tamil and Kashmir Situations

This paper argues that the potential of the Internet to construct and perpetuate identities, especially ethnic and national identities, depends on the social, political and economic factors that affect the region and the people. The paper goes along with the claim that the Internet is a powerful tool in the creation of national identities, especially when the members of the community are widely dispersed and perceive themselves as suppressed or oppressed by another power. The Internet offers communities one of the most effective means of reaching its members, who may no longer live in the geographical area of the nation, while at the same time enabling them to evade the authority and power of the oppressor. Thus, the Internet is the most potent tool for creating and sustaining identities among people who are physically far removed from the nation. However, the Internet's efficacy in the instillation and nurturing of national identity is largely affected by the political, social and economic conditions of the people and the region. The article elaborates this point by analysing the potential of the medium in the long-simmering Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan.     

Living in virtual communities: an ethnography of human relationships in cyberspace

This paper outlines some of the issues involved in the development of human relationships in cyberspace. Set within the wider context of the Internet and society it investigates how geographically distant individuals are coming together on the Internet to inhabit new kinds of social spaces or virtual communities. People 'live in' and 'construct' these new spaces in such a way as to suggest that the Internet is not a placeless cyberspace that is distinct and separate from the real world. Building on the work of other cyberethnographers, the author combines original ethnographic research in Cybercity, a Virtual Community, with face-to-face meetings to illustrate how, for many people, cyberspace is just another place to meet. Second, she suggests that people in Cybercity are investing as much effort in maintaining relationships in cyberspace as in other social spaces. Her preliminary analysis suggests that by extending traditional human relationships into Cybercity, they are widening their webs of relationships, not weakening them. Human relationships in cyberspace are formed and maintained in similar ways to those in wider society. Rather than being exotic and removed from real life, they are actually being assimilated into everyday life. Furthermore, they are often moved into other social settings, just as they are in offline life.     

A common open space or a digital divide? A social model perspective on the online disability community in China

This paper explores the use and impact of the Internet by disabled people in China, informed by the social model of disability. Based on survey data from 122 disabled individuals across 25 provinces in China, study findings suggest that there is an emerging digital divide in the use of Internet amongst the disability community in China. Internet users in our study do not appear to be representative of most disabled people in China. For the minority of disabled people who do have access to the Internet, however, its use can lead to significantly improved frequency and quality of social interaction. Study findings further suggest that the Internet significantly reduced existing social barriers in the physical and social environment for disabled people. Implications for future research, and strategies for increasing reducing the digital divide between the minority of Internet users and the majority of disabled people in China are discussed.     

INTERNET RESOURCES

Abstract

The Internet has been an important way for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people to connect with one another since it was discovered by the community in the late 1980s (Weinrich, 1998). It offers anonymity and easy access, helping those isolated by geography, disability, ignorance, or fear to connect with other individuals and become part of a larger community (Alexander, 1997; Haag & Chang, 1998). With so many LGBT people communicating with each other and gathering information online, it is essential that social service professionals understand how this is done, the climate in which it occurs, and what kind of information people are retrieving. Knowledge of the increasingly sophisticated resources available to professionals online can also help those who work in policy development and social research. This article discusses searching for information on the Internet and reviews several directories, including some specifically oriented for LGBT users.     

Active participation or just more information?

Given increasing calls for children and young people to participate via the Internet in civic and political activities), this article examines how far, and with what success, such participation is occurring among UK teenagers. Findings from a national survey conducted by the UK Children Go Online project show that young people are using the Internet for a wide range of activities that could be considered 'participation', including communicating, peer-to-peer connection, seeking information, interactivity, webpage/content creation and visiting civic/political websites. The findings are closely examined using path analysis techniques to identify the direct and indirect relations among different factors that may explain how and why some young people participate more than others. The results suggest that interactive and creative uses of the Internet are encouraged by the very experience of using the Internet (gaining in interest, skills, confidence, etc.) but that visiting civic websites depends primarily on demographic factors (with older, middle-class girls being most likely to visit these sites). Finally, cluster analysis is used to identify three groups of young people - interactors, the civic-minded and the disengaged - each of which is distinctive in its social context and approach to the Internet.     

Use of the Internet for Community Practice

ABSTRACT

The Internet is a relatively new community practice tool with immense potential for more effective and efficient delivery of services. The lack of research about Internet community practice is an obstacle to the effective and efficient use of Internet tools. This research used the Delphi technique to elicit the opinions of experts on how the Internet tools of email, newsgroups, text, listservs, search engines, and chat are used by the four primary models of community practice found on the Internet (information dissemination, organization building, mobilization, and community planning). Findings show that a substantial number of people use community practice sites. The most useful Internet tools for the four Internet community practice models studied were text presentation and email. The least useful tools were newsgroups and chat. Barriers to Internet community practice include quality and currency of information, bandwidth, staff time, agency support, rapid technological change, marketing, browser consistency, user skills, and the lack of Internet access by potential users. The study concluded that Internet community practice is effective and will continue to grow as society enters the information age. The findings are particularly relevant for community practice agencies interested in setting up or enhancing an agency Web site to help provide services.     

Internet risks and expert views: a case study of the insider perspectives of youth workers in Hong Kong

This study collects and analyses the viewpoints of front-line youth workers regarding the notion of ‘Internet risks’. Previous studies have examined and discussed various dangers of the Internet. Parental, school, and governmental interventions are often called for by those concerned. The implicit assumption is that these are the people who possess the expertise to tackle the problems at hand. Through participation in three forums focusing on ‘Internet risks’, and in-depth interviews with 10 such ‘experts’ in Hong Kong, the study examines if this is a valid assumption. It finds that experts perceive Internet risks rather differently. In addition to the more conventional views about content, contact and conduct risks, our interviewees are aware that a new order is quickly emerging in the new media environment. Despite being considered as ‘experts’, they do not necessarily know how to tackle the so-called ‘youth-at-risk’. Rather, they are exploring how they would capitalize on the opportunities offered by the developments. The key findings highlight the need to critically review the notion of ‘Internet risks’. As with other risk frameworks, the ultimate aim is to develop intervention programmes. In this regard, risks are often treated as concrete problems that can be solved. Youth experts, however, find that the changing scope, speed and persistence of communication in today's information society present the biggest challenge in youth work. The existing framework of risks was unable to describe and account for such risks. In response, Internet risk has to be reconceptualized so that more updated, relevant and imaginative intervention can be introduced.     

E-commerce law task——A Report of Analysis of ISP in the US,EU and China

Internet is a virtual world that develops so fast that every one access to it now, more and more people who have never met before in the real world can communicate even do business transactions at home or abroad. There are substantial web service providers that provide Internet technical supports for ISP users to create, distribute, storage or receive information.     

Australian young people's participatory practices and internet use

This paper examines the relationship between Internet use and political participation among Australian young people. Based on original survey data it demonstrates that there clearly exists a 'digital divide' amongst 18-34-year-old Australians, which is delineated on demographic characteristics of geography, education level, income level and occupational classification. While the Internet has far from replaced the traditional information sources of television and newspapers, it does, however, facilitate participation undertaken by already politically engaged young people. The Internet has fundamental importance in facilitating information sharing and organizing for young people involved in activist and community groups. The paper also provides case studies of two non-government, youth-oriented organizations with participatory Internet sites (Vibewire Youth Services and Inspire Foundation) to further explore the potential of Internet enhancement of young people's autonomous political spaces. One site provides Internet-only, youth-specific mental health services and has developed a portal for active community-based participation. It has won commendations for encouraging youth ownership of service provision and providing space for youth participation. The other site provides discussion and journalism for and by young people on a range of cultural, social and political issues. This site also engages in mainstream political issues through 'electiontracker', which provided four young people with the opportunity to join the mainstream media in following and reporting on the 2004 Australian federal election campaign. The focus in this paper on heterogenous acts of participation is able to expand our understanding of the democratizing potential of young people's Internet-based political practices.     

The value of mixed-method longitudinal panel studies in ict research

This paper uses a unique British three-wave longitudinal dataset to examine the rates of transitions into and out of 'ICT poverty' defined as having Internet access in the household and/or having a mobile phone. This serves three purposes: it shows that many are still 'passing by' ICT ownership, that 'gaining ICT' access is not a one-way street - many just pass through; and that the rates of dropping out differ for different ICTs and for different groups of people. This has implications for both commercial and public policy strategy. It also shows the value of longitudinal approaches to data collection without which this kind of analysis would be impossible.     

Digital Na(t)ives? Variation in Internet Skills and Uses among Members of the “Net Generation”*

People who have grown up with digital media are often assumed to be universally savvy with information and communication technologies. Such assumptions are rarely grounded in empirical evidence, however. This article draws on unique data with information about a diverse group of young adults’ Internet uses and skills to suggest that even when controlling for Internet access and experiences, people differ in their online abilities and activities. Additionally, findings suggest that Internet know‐how is not randomly distributed among the population, rather, higher levels of parental education, being a male, and being white or Asian American are associated with higher levels of Web‐use skill. These user characteristics are also related to the extent to which young adults engage in diverse types of online activities. Moreover, skill itself is positively associated with types of uses. Overall, these findings suggest that even when controlling for basic Internet access, among a group of young adults, socioeconomic status is an important predictor of how people are incorporating the Web into their everyday lives with those from more privileged backgrounds using it in more informed ways for a larger number of activities.     

Are we all equally at home socializing online? Cyberasociality and evidence for an unequal distribution of disdain for digitally-mediated sociality

Online social media are an increasingly important arena of social interaction. This rapid transition to digitally mediated sociality is far from trivial in both the consequences it engenders and the tensions it generates. In this paper, we find that some people do not take as readily to accepting digitally mediated sociality as others, and that this mode of connectivity appears fulfilling and engaging to some while it appears hollow and vacant to others due to variations in a personality disposition which we dub ‘cyberasociality' which was defined as the inability or unwillingness of some people to relate to others via social media as they do when physically present by Tufekci [2010. Who acquires friends through social media and why? Rich get richer versus seek and ye shall find. Proceedings of the fourth international conference on weblogs and social media, Washington, DC]. Using two purposive samples of college students (n?=?410 and n?=?417 completed surveys), we develop a scale to test cyberasociality as a construct. We show that cyberasociality is neither a mere reflection of offline sociability nor a proxy for other well-studied traits such as extraversion or neuroticism, nor a simple reflection of Internet experience or cohort effects. We find that cyberasociality impacts how people use digital social tools more than whether they use them, and that the cyberasocial are less likely to use platforms for digitally mediated social interaction to broaden their social networks or to forge new social ties online while they are equally likely to use digital channels for utilitarian purposes such as coordinating plans or finding out about class assignments. Such differences in dispositions toward online sociality hint toward new wrinkles, advantages and disadvantages for consequences of variations in Internet use.     

Exceptions to the Rule: Chabad-Lubavitch and the Digital Sphere

This article explores the tension between the inside and the outside in Chabad practice as represented by the digital sphere. Drawing on a close reading of Chabad Web sites, as well as archival and theoretical sources and biblical and rabbinic analysis, Chabad's relationship to media generally and the Internet specifically is explored. I find that Chabad's institutional use of the Internet is as a space to disseminate information rather than create community. The Internet is, for Chabad, a temporary space designed to bring people together in the real world rather than to create a virtual community. The Web site is designed to encourage people to seek out in-person encounters with Chabad Rabbis, whose recruitment techniques rest largely on personal charisma and interactions.     

Technology,Social Inclusion and Poverty: An Exploratory Investigation of a Community Technology Center

ABSTRACT

Community technology centers (CTCs) are advanced as a major part of the solution to the so-called digital divide. It is believed that in the knowledge economy access to computing resources should level the playing field for low income people. Faced with a growing population that cannot afford computers or the Internet, government policy makers have been turning to technology community access points. This article presents a brief overview of the digital divide and whether or not CTCs can effectively address the problem. A CTC located at the Debra Dynes Family House in Ottawa, Canada–a center that has been highlighted in newspapers and government reports as a success story in bridging the digital divide-is reviewed. The concept of social inclusion is explored to determine how CTCs are addressing poverty and social exclusion.