2 results
five - Varieties of access and use
- Edited by Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science, Leslie Haddon, London School of Economics and Political Science, Anke Görzig, London School of Economics and Political Science
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- Book:
- Children, Risk and Safety on the Internet
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 07 September 2022
- Print publication:
- 18 July 2012, pp 59-72
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
The vast array of risks and opportunities that confront children in their daily media practices cannot be analysed in isolation from the broader context in which these practices emerge and become meaningful. Previous research (Livingstone and Helsper, 2007, 2009) indicates that the patterns and social contexts of general internet use are key factors shaping children's online activities and their exposure to risks.
In the EU Kids Online project, the institutional, social and cultural environment co-determining the quality of online experience has been analysed from the perspective of children's everyday lives (Livingstone et al, 2011). Online experience is defined as a pathway composed of the online activities engaged in by children, the online and offline factors that shape the safety of online environments and their harmful and beneficial outcomes.
This chapter focuses on the first step along this path, and analyses the increasing variety of internet access and use experienced by children in Europe. Locations, platforms, experience and the embeddedness of the internet in everyday life are accounted for in order to provide a full picture of the first and the most immediate sociocultural layer in which children's agency is exercised. Insofar as individuals’ use of technologies is socially shaped within family and peer relations (Haddon, 2004), this chapter investigates the relationship between place of access, online experience and frequency of use of the internet, within the family’s wider technological culture. It examines cross-national variations in patterns of usage and provides a classification of countries.
Emerging trends and cross-national variations
‘Thinking holistically’ (Haddon, 2003) seems to be one of the most noticeable trends in recent research on media practices. Media are no longer investigated in their individual textuality or as clusters of isolated material practices, but rather as the constituents in an ‘ecology’ (Ito et al, 2009), that is, as ‘an overall technical, social, cultural and place-based system, in which the components are not decomposable or separable’ (Ito et al, 2009, p 31).
‘Media ecologies’ are place- and time-based systems that can be studied from the viewpoint of the temporal and spatial coordinates in which they are rooted. This point is developed thoroughly in the domestication approach (Silverstone and Hirsch, 1992), whose theoretical and empirical insights constitute the framework for the analysis in this chapter.
nine - Digital divides
- Edited by Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science, Leslie Haddon, London School of Economics and Political Science
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- Book:
- Kids Online
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 15 July 2022
- Print publication:
- 30 September 2009, pp 107-120
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Summary
Digital divides: beyond access and usage
Since the mid-1990s there has been an increasing interest in the nature and extent of digital divides, and in academic circles the term itself has gradually given way to that of ‘digital inclusion’. In the mid-1990s the ‘digital divide’ has been seen in terms of a dichotomy between the ‘information haves’ and the ‘information have-nots’ (Wresch, 1996), or, in economic terms, the ‘information poor’ and the ‘information rich’ (Webster, 1995). One of the first theorisations of digital divides was based on diffusion theory (Rogers, 1995). It argued that the acquisition of and access to computers and internet equipment is a fundamental criterion for overcoming gaps and inequalities. This understanding of digital divides has been criticised for presenting a limited conceptualisation of the phenomenon, as access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) cannot be considered sufficient for overcoming exclusion from new digital opportunities (Selwyn, 2003, 2004a, 2004b; Warschauser, 2003; Bradbrook and Fisher, 2004). Carpentier (2003) analyses the discourses of academics and politicians concerning digital divides, concluding that three main lines of criticism apply: (1) a limited focus on access instead of kinds of use; (2) an over-simplified dichotomy between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’; and (3) a lack of clarity due to the application of the ‘digital divide’ concept to a wide variety of activities.
After 2000, scholars such as Norris (2001) presented a more complex picture of digital divides, discarding the dichotomy between haves and have-nots and at the same time taking into account the quality and efficiency of the use of digital technologies. The literature increasingly allowed more elaborated positions, suggesting a ‘thicker description of the various shades of information and telecommunications inequalities’ (Wilhelm, 2000: 69-70). Social, cultural and educational parameters influence the capability of the individual to make effective use of digital technologies through requisite skills, knowledge and support (van Dijk, 2006). Material resources and economic capacity, socialisation into the dominant culture, technical skills and awareness of the prevalent techno-culture, as well as social networks, are all forces shaping digital divides (Selwyn, 2004a). Policy strategies and regulatory practices also significantly influence the nature of digital divides in specific national and regional contexts (Tsatsou, 2008).