Willard Uncapher on Tue, 4 Dec 2001 10:24:58 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> New Studies of the Internet |
There recent discussion of net.design usability lay out some interesting questions about the varied audiences and groups engaged with the Internet. Who is the ideal audience of any particular bit of web coding, art project, or even textual analysis? Do these differences matter? What is lost between shifting from a 'local' group of interest, perhaps a net.art collective, a rural development collective, or grand national surveys? If our interest is in the arts, to what extent do we need our own surveys of who are visiting sites of particular genres, what meanings engage these audiences, what values they embrace, what they feel is lacking (a Lacanian move, of sorts), and so on. I would think that site statistics of particular sites, say the Walker Museum, may or may not solve general questions of the net.art involvement overall? I mean, what has happened to Mike Gunderloy's FactSheet 5 crowd and their movement for underground 'zines? What do we hear about these experiments in this period of tiresome commentary about the .dotcom bust, and the evaluation about when consumers are going to get back in the business of buying stuff, and capitalists back in the swing of geometric financial growth figures? Who can we trust to put together such a survey? What are the criteria of that trust? If as Giddens and others say, that we need to move from place oriented social investigation (that is, that assumes place as a given), to more systems (and I might add, hierarchy) oriented studies (that can include, focus on, even problematize place), then what sort of new surveys would prove of use to those of us (also) interested in cultural analysis, political interventions, and artistic practice? How should these figures and results be circulated, where, and how should they be checked and re/evaluated? For example, it might be useful to take note of the just released "UCLA national study of Internet Use, just released Nov 28th at: http://www.ccp.ucla.edu/index.asp . Now on the whole, the Report presents some interesting claims: Internet use is still strong and growing (despite the speculative .dot com bust). Suggest that people are substituting the Internet for TV within what we might call a 'media time budget,' since other activities, such as time spent eating and playing sports are alleged to have stayed the same. Suggest that there is still an increase in web based purchases over 'bricks-and-mortar' based transactions, against a broader context of an economic slowdown. There are some figures about 'trust' and about continuing fear about credit card fraud. Also, there is a continuing expansion of email and instant messaging, making it still the most popular activity online, and a key reason that people, according the study go online. It is up to you researchers and theorists to decide how these concepts were operationalized (eg. what does 'trust' mean). The report obviously sticks to a rather instrumentalist view of the Internet, tailored to e-commerce, and appear to venture to raising issues of surveillance, sharing of data, encryption, and other such aspects of Net use. There is not much account of, or at least orientation towards 'meaning.' And in line with traditional social science methodology, the underlying narrative and presentation does not speak to the tensions and contradictions in its categorizations, nor is there any notable reflexivity. I often find it refreshing to listen to journalistic ethnographies, but then they must attend to their presumed audience and editors. I think we must continue to ask, what is the best way to 'investigate' and intervene in online/offline worlds? For whom, and what purpose. As others have also said, such investigations as evidenced these UCLA, Pew, NTIA Internet tracking reports often leaves out what the individuals were doing while they were involved with one medium, or how they might use different media in combination. This is particularly a problem in interpreting many of the 'digital divide' studies. If digital divide studies are to be more than marketing surveys for the under-served, then we will need to know more about the role of libraries, collective competence, the sharing of resources, multi-media competencies, and so on. ### http://www.ccp.ucla.edu/index.asp According to its results: November 28, 2001 Posted: 11:20 PM EST (0420 GMT) Highlights from the 2001 UCLA Internet Report, "Surveying the Digital Future." -- Study based on national sample of 2,006 Internet users and non-users -- Percentage of Americans with online access: 72.3 (2001; up from up from 66.9 percent in 2000) -- Average weekly online use: 9.8 hours (2001; up from 9.4 hours in 2000) -- Average weekly TV use by non-users: 10 hours -- Fewer weekly hours users spend watching TV: 4.5 -- Percentage of users who believe most online info is accurate: 58 -- Percentage of users who made purchases online: 48.9 -- Percentage of users who would reduce purchases if sales tax imposed: 43.3 -- Percentage of users with at least some concern on credit card security: 94.5 -- Percentage of adults who say children spend right amount time online: 88.2 -- Percentage of adults who say children's grades have stayed same or improved since logging on: 96.7 -- Percentage of users who say e-mail improves communications: 80.9 -- Percentage of users who disagree e-mail takes too much time: 64.7 -- Percentage of non-users not interested in logging on: 21.4 -- Primary reason non-users give for not logging on: no computer -- Percentage of students who use the Internet at school: 64.3 (2001; was 55.3 in 2000) -- Percentage of employed who use the Internet at work away from home: 51.2 (2001; was 42.3 in 2000) ### Willard Uncapher, Ph.D. / Network Emergence / 2369 Rodin Place, Davis, CA 95616 mailto:willard@well.com / http://www.well.com/user/willard # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net