Internet Users (internet + user)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Carers and the digital divide: factors affecting Internet use among carers in the UK

HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE IN THE COMMUNITY, Issue 3 2005
Clare Blackburn BA (Hons) DipHE RHV RGN
Abstract This paper presents data from a cross-sectional survey of 3014 adult carers, examining use of the Internet and factors associated with it. Carers recruited from the databases of three local authorities and other carer organisations within their geographical boundaries and that of Carers UK, a national carers organisation, were sent a postal questionnaire (response rate: 40%). A comparison of our data with national data on carers suggests some under-representation of men and younger adult carers and some over-representation of those who had been caring for long periods and those with substantial caring responsibilities. Two measures of Internet use were used and are presented in this analysis: previous use (ever used vs never previously used) and frequency (less than once a week vs once a week or more). Bivariate analyses identified patterns of Internet use and socio-demographic and socio-economic factors and caring circumstances associated with them. Factors significantly associated with each measure of Internet use were entered into direct logistic regression analyses to identify factors significantly associated with each measure. Half (50%) of all carers had previously used the Internet. Of this group, 61% had used it once a week or more frequently. Factors significantly associated with having previously used the Internet were carer's age, employment status, housing tenure and number of hours per week they spent caring. Frequency of Internet use was significantly associated with carer's age, sex, employment status and number of hours spent caring. Our study suggests that a significant number of carers may not currently be Internet users and that age, gender, socio-economic status and caring responsibilities shape Internet use in particular ways. Given the targets set by government for the development of online services, it is important to address the digital divide among carers and to continue to develop other services and information systems to meet the needs of those who do not access the Internet. [source]


Global online marketplace: a cross-cultural comparison of website quality

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 6 2006
Soyoung Kim
Abstract This study used Loiacono's WebQualTM scale to compare 278 US and 347 Korean Internet users in terms of their perceptions of retail website quality. The results of the study suggested that the dimensionality of website quality was not consistent across the two samples. This study also examined which dimensions of website quality influenced shoppers' satisfaction with the site and purchase intention. The findings indicated that the relationship between website quality dimensions and the two dependent variables varied between the two groups. [source]


Situating Internet Use: Information-Seeking Among Young Women with Breast Cancer

JOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, Issue 3 2010
Ellen Balka
In recent years considerable attention has been focused on the potential of the Internet as a means of health information delivery that can meet varied health information needs and empower patients. In this article, we explore utilization of the Internet as a means of health information consumption amongst young women with breast cancer who were known Internet users. Focusing on a population known to be competent at using the Internet allowed us to eliminate the digital divide as a possible explanation for limited use of the Internet for health information-seeking. Ultimately, this allowed us to demonstrate that even in this Internet savvy population, the Internet is not necessarily an unproblematic means of disseminating health care information, and to demonstrate that the huge amount of health care information available does not automatically mean that information is useful to those who seek it, or even particularly easy to find. Results from our qualitative study suggest that young women with breast cancer sought information about their illness in order to make a health related decision, to learn what would come next, or to pursue social support. Our respondents reported that the Internet was one source of many that they consulted when seeking information about their illness, and it was not the most trusted or most utilized source of information this population sought. [source]


Communication Communities or "CyberGhettos?": A Path Analysis Model Examining Factors that Explain Selective Exposure to Blogs,

JOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, Issue 1 2009
Thomas J. Johnson Ph.D.
This study used an online panel of Internet users to examine the degree to which blog users practice selective exposure when seeking political information. The research employed a path analysis model to explore the extent to which exposure to offline and online discussion of political issues, and offline and online media use, as well as political variables and demographic factors, predict an individual's likelihood to engage in selective exposure to blogs. The findings indicate that respondents did practice selective exposure to blogs, predominantly those who are heavy blog users, politically active both online and offline, partisan, and highly educated. [source]


The Internet and Youth Subculture in Kuwait

JOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, Issue 2 2003
Deborah L. Wheeler
Young people in Kuwait constitute both the highest concentration of Internet users (estimated to be approximately 63% of all Internet users in Kuwait)and the largest sector of Kuwaiti society. Moreover, as argued in this article, young people's Internet practices are likely to stimulate the most significant changes in Kuwaiti society. This article scrutinizes a handful of descriptions by young Kuwaiti of the importance and implication of the Internet in their lives. [source]


User Behavior and the "Globalness" of Internet: From a Taiwan Users' Perspective

JOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, Issue 2 2002
Chun Chou Liu
It is believed that the cyberworld knows no borders and boundaries. Users from all corners of the world are connected. However, the literature stops short of telling us how meaningful and valuable its "borderless" nature actually is to the Internet users themselves. Have they taken full advantage of whatever freedom is available to them in roaming the cyberworld? Do they venture beyond their language and/or cultural group to interact with those whoM they normally would have little opportunity to meet otherwise? To what extent do they take advantage of the opportunity to venture beyond the limits of their "real" worlds? Taiwan houses one of the most vigorous information industries in the world. This paper looks at the general patterns of Internet use in Taiwan, including online activities for communication, information access, and e-commerce. Secondly, a special effort is made to examine the "globalness" of Taiwan users' Internet behavior, and the factors contributing to these patterns of use. In Taiwan, the Internet as a medium may indeed be "global," yet the user continues to live within the "local," the "place" one relates to, where his/her needs and desires are generated, and where one feels a sense of belonging. One may briefly venture out of this locality to accomplish a task, fulfill a goal, or simply satisfy his/her curiosity; however, as pointed out by Wang and Servaes (2000), the importance, significance, and relevance of the global are not as great as that of the local. [source]


Making sense of credibility on the Web: Models for evaluating online information and recommendations for future research

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 13 2007
Miriam J. Metzger
This article summarizes much of what is known from the communication and information literacy fields about the skills that Internet users need to assess the credibility of online information. The article reviews current recommendations for credibility assessment, empirical research on how users determine the credibility of Internet information, and describes several cognitive models of online information evaluation. Based on the literature review and critique of existing models of credibility assessment, recommendations for future online credibility education and practice are provided to assist users in locating reliable information online. The article concludes by offering ideas for research and theory development on this topic in an effort to advance knowledge in the area of credibility assessment of Internet-based information. [source]


Relevance of Web documents: Ghosts consensus method

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 10 2002
Andrey L. Gorbunov
The dominant method currently used to improve the quality of Internet search systems is often called "digital democracy." Such an approach implies the utilization of the majority opinion of Internet users to determine the most relevant documents: for example, citation index usage for sorting of search results (google.com) or an enrichment of a query with terms that are asked frequently in relation with the query's theme. "Digital democracy" is an effective instrument in many cases, but it has an unavoidable shortcoming, which is a matter of principle: the average intellectual and cultural level of Internet users is very low,everyone knows what kind of information is dominant in Internet query statistics. Therefore, when one searches the Internet by means of "digital democracy" systems, one gets answers that reflect an underlying assumption that the user's mind potential is very low, and that his cultural interests are not demanding. Thus, it is more correct to use the term "digital ochlocracy" to refer to Internet search systems with "digital democracy." Based on the well-known mathematical mechanism of linear programming, we propose a method to solve the indicated problem. [source]


The Dimensionality of Right-Wing Authoritarianism: Lessons from the Dilemma between Theory and Measurement

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2005
Friedrich Funke
The RWA Scale (Altemeyer, 1981, 1988, 1996) is commonly regarded as the best measure of right-wing authoritarianism. The one-dimensional instrument assesses the covariation of three attitudinal clusters: authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, and conventionalism. The incongruence between the implicit conceptual dimensionality on the one hand and methodological operationalization on the other makes room for discussion about whether it would be advantageous to measure the 3 facets of RWA separately. I rely on three arguments: (1) confirmatory factor analyses showing that three-dimensional scales fit the data better than the conventional one-dimensional practice; (2) the dimensions showing a considerable interdimension discrepancy in their capability to explain validation criteria; and (3) the dimensions showing an intradimensional discrepancy which is dependent upon the research question. The argumentation is illustrated by empirical evidence from several Web-based studies among German Internet users. [source]


Political Communication in a European Public Space: Language, the Internet and Understanding as Soft Power,

JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 2 2008
RICHARD ROSE
This article demonstrates that the European Union's linguistic diversity policy is a barrier to greater popular participation in a European public space. It sets out three political communication models: elite discourse, aggregative democracy and deliberation in a European public space; each has different linguistic requirements. It presents survey evidence showing that Europeans are ,voting with their mouths' for a single lingua franca, resulting in English as a foreign language (EFL) becoming the most widely understood language in the EU and its use on the internet for transnational as well as domestic communication. More than one-third of Europeans now have the basic prerequisites for participation in a European public space: they are internet users and know the lingua franca of Europe, EFL. The EU's linguistic diversity policy is even more a barrier for participation in a global public space in which EFL is now the lingua franca of Asia and other continents. It concludes that knowledge of EFL does not confer soft power on Anglophones but on Europeans using it in interactions with monoglot American and English speakers. [source]


AUSTRALIA'S EQUITY HOME BIAS

AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC PAPERS, Issue 1 2008
ANIL V. MISHRA
This paper constructs the float adjusted measure of home bias and explores the determinants of Australia's equity home bias by employing the International Monetary Fund's high quality dataset (2001 to 2005) on cross border equity investment. On the empirical front, the paper conducts robustness tests by employing instrumental variables that are standard in the financial economics literature. The paper finds that the share of the number of firms listed in the domestic market and the share of internet users in the total population of the host country has a significant impact on equity home bias. Trade linkages are found to have a mixed impact on equity home bias. The paper also finds that the country's market share of the world market capitalisation and transaction costs do not impact Australia's equity home bias. Investors are found to exhibit low diversification motives. [source]