MEASURING THE INTERNET: HOST COUNTS VERSUS BUSINESS PLANS

The excessive media attention in and economic hopes placed on the Internet mean that measures of its size and distribution have been undertaken more often with an eye to business plans than to methodological rigour.This paper examines one disinterested source of Internet statistics, the Internet Domain Survey, to provide accurate measures of Internet size and distribution. Methodological issues in utilizing this survey are discussed to ensure the significance of findings is understood and to identify key methodological problems in a new field of research. Two particular problems are identified; the need to define user per computer host ratios and to identify the national origin of computers with international domain names. Statistics are presented from the five Internet Domain Surveys from January 1998 to January 2000 in the following categories: overall size, regional distribution, human development and economic distribution, linguistic distribution and user numbers. The conclusion is reached that even as the Internet is growing in all regions world-wide it remains concentrated in the highly developed nations. Some consideration of the implications of this for wider debates around the Internet is given.     

Selling the internet: A cultural studies approach to public relations

In the 1930s many argued that television would make for a more educated society but television became a vehicle to sell goods and services. The Internet is moving along the same path. In Massachusetts an organization called MassNetworks was set up in 1996 to ensure that the Internet gets into the classroom. MassNetworks is a non-profit organization whose board is composed of educators, government representatives, but mostly computer executives. Who stands to benefit from the insertion of computer technology in the classroom? The promotion of the Internet as an invaluable tool is the message of the computer industry, and only subsequently the voice of educators. The computer industry argues that the only path to quality education is the Internet. Don't other voices need to be heard?     

Family characteristics and intergenerational conflicts over the Internet

The rapid expansion of computer use and Internet connection has the potential to change patterns of family interaction, with conflicts arising over adolescents' autonomy, parental authority and control of the computer. This study applied a conceptual framework derived from family development and human ecology theory to investigate family characteristics related to the likelihood of such conflicts. A secondary analysis was conducted of a special survey of 754 children aged 12 to 17 who used the Internet, and of their parents, performed by Pew Internet and the American Life project. Adolescent-parent conflicts over Internet use proved strongly related to the perception that the adolescent was a computer expert. Families in which adolescents were considered experts in new technologies were more likely to experience conflicts. Parents' attempt to reduce adolescent autonomy by regulating the time of Internet use increased the likelihood of family arguments over the Internet. Intergenerational conflicts over the Internet were higher in families in which parents expressed concern over the potentially negative consequences of Internet use. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

The digital divide in Sydney

In Australia, there has been limited research into the issue of the digital divide. Even less attention has been given to the social and spatial characteristics of this phenomenon, particularly within metropolitan areas. This paper attempts to fill this gap by examining the social and spatial characteristics of computer and Internet use in Sydney. The findings suggest that those individuals who are socially and economically disadvantaged have lower rates of computer and Internet use, and that these individuals also risk exacerbating their disadvantage status if these demand-side barriers are not addressed. If we are to address disparities in computer and Internet use in Australia we need to consider more fully the social and spatial nature of such disparities that prevent individuals from accessing such technologies in an increasingly 'wired' world.     

Appropriate Theorizing about African Women and the Internet

The WomenAction 2000 case data illustrate that the Internet situation among women's organizations in Africa is highly problematic. The women have specific computer network needs - and even among this 'group' the needs vary. They further represent grassroots women who have no access to computer networks. The survey data illustrate that appropriate theorizing on Internet working by women in Africa must address both technological and social issues. It must also integrate gender, North-South, context and other aspects. For this purpose, available approaches are neither complete nor entirely adequate. Together however, they offer enough building blocks to study African women and Internet introduction appropriately. Constructivist technology studies (including gender and technology approaches) offer good starting points for an appropriate model. Nevertheless, constructivism needs additions to support gender empowerment in the South. Critical development studies and the integrative view on global communications offer useful additions to this end.     

Understanding the means and objects of addiction: Technology,the internet,and gambling

This article describes how using new computer technology and the Internet for gambling can represent both the means and object of addiction. However, these technological factors do not represent the cause of addictive behavior. Given the widespread availability of computer technology and the remarkable expansion of the Internet, it is not surprising, however, that these technological advances have become associated with intemperate gambling activities. By discussing the concept of addiction and its associated social setting, neurochemistry, and gaming characteristics, this article suggests that addiction is the result of shifts in subjective experience and that new technology and the Internet can provide relatively reliable and potent contemporary vehicles for changing emotional states.Special thanks are extended to Joni Vander Bilt, Matthew Hall, and Gregory O'Donohue for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.     

Hard Rock Hallelujah! Empowering Reflexive Political Action on the Internet

The role of the Internet is becoming increasingly significant with regard to political participation and mobilisation. The Internet is a powerful tool in gathering coalitions and organising mobilisation of any kind. However, it is also transforming political styles, forms and the organisational structuring of political activities. In this article, the authors analyse the nature of the political struggle and resistance taking place on the Internet by scrutinising the Finnish Internet protest campaigning against gossip journalism in May 2006. This campaign emerged almost entirely in the Internet environment around the emotional turmoil caused by the publications of the Eurovision Song Contest winner Lordi’s unmasked pictures. This example shows how citizens have adopted the logic of computer‐mediated communication, and how they employ information and communications technology for reflexive individualised politics.     

Sex similarities and differences in stance in informal American conversation1

This study compares men's and women's use of stance: the expression of attitude, emotion, certainty, doubt and commitment. A corpus of nearly 900,000 words of informal conversation in social and work contexts was examined with a computer program that measured stance. The main categories, subcategories and the 180 most frequent stance expressions were analyzed with multiple ANOVAs. The main stance categories of affect, evidentials, and quantifiers showed no significant differences between men and women. In terms of subcategories, general affect, boulomaic verbs, general evidentials, mental verbs, hedges and emphatics had no significant differences between men and women; only expletives had a significant difference between men and women. Of the individual stance expressions, only 35 showed a significant difference between men and women. Examples from actual conversations are given to compare men's and women's speech. Cooperative work between qualitative and quantitative researchers is recommended.     

Assessing political participation on the Internet in contemporary China

Drawing on the resource model of political participation, this study examines the ways in which various resources, including money, computer and Internet access, Internet skills, and civic skills predict Chinese citizens’ political participation online. The results showed that income was a significant predictor of online political participation regardless of whether it was by using the Internet to contact governmental officials, monitoring public policies online, or participating in online protests. Civic skills also consistently predicted the three forms of online political participation. Computer and Internet access, as well as Internet skills, were significant predictors of some forms of online political participation, but not all of them. Political interest positively moderated the association between income and each of the three dependent variables. The theoretical and empirical implications of these results are discussed.     

Ordinary Usage of New Media: Internet Usage via Mobile Phone in Japan

Abstract:  This paper, by analyzing Internet usage via mobile phones in Japan, aims to clarify an aspect of information behavior in present-day Japanese society.
Many discourses on the mobile Internet in Japan, either positive or negative, emphasize its novelty and describe this new media as an exotic phenomenon. These discourses can be divided into two categories. The nationalistic discourses and the moral panic discourses. Both types of discourse have built certain images of social influences of the mobile Internet in the future. However, it would be unwise to conclude that those images of the mobile Internet express the reality of this new medium, simply because they lack empirical ground.
With these points in mind, based on the result of our national survey conducted in 2001, we would like to show the actual status of use of the mobile Internet and discuss that the ordinary usage is a critically important realm to understand the process of social reception of the mobile Internet. As our data shows, although the actual usage of the mobile Internet is not very conspicuous, it gives us a chance to understand how the mobile Internet has been integrated into our everyday lives.     

Does questionnaire format impact reported partner violence rates?: An experimental study

Researchers assess partner violence using numerous formats, but whether questionnaire format affects obtained rates has rarely been examined. We compared paper-and-pencil versus computer administrations, and standard Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2) categories versus dichotomous (yes/no) response categories, in a 2 x 2 experiment with 160 undergraduate students. Differential validity was also examined for gender. Results provide some support for the use of all formats, although sexual coercion rates showed more measurement variability than reports of psychological aggression, physical assault, or injury. Sexual coercion effects also differed by gender. The standard CTS2 categories resulted in more disclosures than dichotomous categories for some variables. Differences between computer and paper-and-pencil formats were generally minimal. More attention to the effects of questionnaire design on disclosures of violence is urgently needed.     

Information society and digital divide in South Africa: results of longitudinal surveys

Integration into the information society implies that information plays an increasingly important role in all sectors of society and holds distinct social and economic benefits. Discourses on the information society are, however, also associated with the digital divide and inequalities in access to and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Within sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa is often regarded as one of the most information-integrated societies due to widespread mobile phone ownership, among other things. However, while ICT access has been emphasized, research also points to the role of demographic, socio-economic and cultural factors such as ethnicity, income, education and gender. This article discusses the results of questionnaire surveys conducted by Afrobarometer among probability South African samples in 2008 and 2011. The results indicate that individual Internet use and mobile Internet access were lower than estimated in the literature. Furthermore, gender gaps, as well as considerable gaps between population groups and educational levels, were found in Internet and computer use, mobile ownership and access to mobile Internet and accessing news via the Internet. Conclusions regarding strategies for bridging the digital divide and integrating South Africa into the information society are discussed.     

The political use of the internet: Some insights from two surveys of Italian students

Interest in the Internet's impact on political participation has grown over the last five years. The main claim of most social scientists is to consider the Internet as a new resource for political engagement. However, this claim has not always been backed up by empirical analysis. The aim of this article is to provide empirical evidence on a subject that previous surveys on the Internet have generally ignored: the influence of individual political characteristics on Internet use. The authors compare data from two distinct surveys, carried out in two different periods but which contain some common batteries of questions referring to political participation and Internet use for political purposes. One survey was carried out in 2001 and focused on students at the University of Florence. The second was carried out in 2002 and focused on the participants in the European Social Forum in Florence. The empirical results and interpretations offered are based on a sample of 397 students, extracted from the two databases. The focus of the research is on exploring whether and how the political use of the Internet is shaped by the political characteristics of users, in this case students. The findings of the two studies suggest that, firstly, the more students are engaged in different social and political organizations, the more they use the Internet to achieve political purposes; and, secondly, that different styles of Internet use (to retrieve alternative information, to discuss and to perform political actions) are associated with the political characteristics of users. In particular, the characteristics of offline participation are reproduced online: the Internet is appropriated and shaped by political practices of users.     

Deception in the Workplace: Recent Research and Promising New Directions

This review identifies some of the promising new directions that scholars are pursuing in current research on deceptions in places of work. I identify and explore five main emphases that have emerged. These directions are comprised of studies that count the pervasiveness of deceptions; examine deception in service provision and emotional labor; identify varied workplace cultures of deception; examine accounts for deception in the wake of corruption, financial misconduct and other misbehaviors; and studies of Internet and computer technologies as new territories for deception. I conclude by suggesting some additional arenas for research into workplace deception, specifically, on professions that produce deception as a form of legitimate work; on deceptions in non‐profit organizations, and research into the technical and dramaturgical efforts that people put into making lies appear believable.     

Internet and the Political Public Sphere

The article addresses the main theory of the political public sphere generally, and the role of the Internet and Internet‐based media in the theory specifically. It first reviews briefly the initial social research on the Internet in the 1990s concerning political participation. After a presentation of Jürgen Habermas' theory of the contemporary public sphere, it proceeds to discuss the main problems concerning the Internet as a platform or infrastructure for public debate: segmentation and concentration. It argues that a general conclusion is that the public sphere differentiates and become more complex. A key task for future research, it argues, is to investigate the complex connections between Internet publics and mass media publics.     

“I Don't Go By Sean Patrick”: On-Line/Off-Line/Out Identity and SeanPatrickLive.com

Web cams are cameras that are attached to a computer in order to send continuously updated pictures over the Internet. SeanPatrickLive is a Web cam site that documented the life of Sean, a gay man living in the Washington, D.C. area. This essay is the result of ethnographic interviews with Sean Patrick. It discusses Web cams within the context of the cyberqueer, examining how sexuality is presented on-line, using the Internet and the Web cam as a form of gay/queer politics, and performing identity on- and off-line.     

Macro Practice and Policy in Cyberspace

SUMMARY

The integration of computer training within social work education is necessary for social workers to keep abreast of technological changes occurring within human service agencies. This article presents several techniques to integrate computer simulations and Internet research within the baccalaureate curriculum. Emphasis is placed on the use of these techniques to teach policy and macro practice.