Social and Public Policy Internet Research:

Goals and Achievements

Dr. James E. Katz (Bellcore/Rutgers University) and Dr. Philip Aspden (CRIS)

(Also available are slides from Dr. Aspden's talk at the University of Michigan School of Information on February 2, 1998)

Despite the rapidly growing uses of the Internet there has been little systematic empirical research on its direct impact on society. Consequently public policy issues and choices are poorly understood.

To help fill this disturbing gap we started in 1995 a research program, based on national random telephone surveys and systematic in-depth interviews. Our aim has been to investigate three key aspects of the Internet:

  • Access - who is on and off the 'Net and why. This is the major public policy area for those who see the Internet as a universal service. It also has ramifications for issues related to political and economic equity.
  • Impact on existing societal infrastructures - the Internet can fundamentally alter the way Americans work and interact. Our research has initially focused on the impact of the Internet on citizen groups and community involvement, and the extent it erodes, strengthens or alters such participation.
  • New ways of expression and communication via the Internet - as a powerful new medium, the Internet provides opportunities for creating novel societal infrastructures, that is, radically different ways for people to organize themselves for social action. Our research has investigated friendship creation and social relations as they relate to Internet participation.
    •  Below we summarize our findings and their policy implications. We also sketch out further areas of research that have emerged due to progress on our research agenda. At the end of the document we give biographical information plus a list of reports and published papers.

    Findings: Access to the Internet - Two digital divides

    Our research on access to the Internet has identified two digital divides - one concerning awareness and the other concerning usage. Regarding awareness, those who were less well-educated, less affluent, black/Hispanic or old were less likely to be aware of the Internet. Regarding usage, those who were less well-educated, less affluent, female or old were less likely to be Internet users; we found no racial/ethnic effect relating to usage.

    Class as represented by economic resources and educational achievement appears to be much more important in predicting Internet awareness and usage than race/ethnicity or gender. Contrary to much conventional wisdom, we did not find race/ethnicity to be a predictor of usage; it is, however, a strong predictor of awareness. Gender also appears to have a lesser role than we expected, being only a predictor of usage not awareness; even with usage, gender differences appear to be narrowing, and may have disappeared for users starting in 1996.

    The inequities of awareness and use will become increasingly urgent as more job-related services (postings of job opportunities, training), government functions and public service information become available via the Internet.

    Regarding motivations for Internet use - two points stand out. Users as compared to non-users rate more highly Internet activities such as people interaction and information access. However, users and non-users appear to rate equally highly the emerging commercial activity on the Internet.

    We identified three key barriers to Internet usage - cost, access and complexity. Two of these - cost and access were more strongly felt by non-users - perhaps reflecting their lower affluence (ability to pay for the Internet) and educational achievements (ability to navigate the Internet). Most significantly, both users and non-users were equally concerned about Internet complexity. Without improvements here, frustration levels will remain high, and potential user benefits will to a large extent go unrealized.

    Internet dropouts have been overlooked in discussions about cyberspace, yet their numbers are in the millions. We found that dropouts were significantly younger, less affluent, and less well educated than users. Teenage users of the Internet appear to be more likely to dropout than older users, but our findings are quite tentative in this regard. The main reasons offered by dropouts for ceasing to use the Internet were - lost access to the Internet, the Internet not sufficiently interesting, problems with use, and bills too high. Finally, the way users were introduced to the Internet appeared to be related to the propensity to dropout. For example, users taught by friends or family were more likely to become dropouts; and those taught at work or who were self-taught were less likely to become dropouts. This suggests that initial commitment and motive, as well as sunk costs, are important factors determining who perseveres in the face of the Internet's technical, procedural and substantive frustrations.

    Findings: Impact on societal structures - Internet usage expanding community and political involvement

    Some critics say that the rise of the Internet and other cyberspace activities is eroding community participation and social integration. Contrary to these pessimistic predictions, our research revealed no support for the hypothesis that Internet participation is diminishing community participation and social integration. Indeed, by some measures, cyberspace denizens report that they are even more involved in social activities than their non-Internet using counterparts. This relationship holds true even when controlling for a variety of demographic and attitudinal variables.

    Even if average users and non-users have the same level of community involvement, some critics aver that heavy Internet usage leads to significantly reduced community involvement. Here again, using data from our 1995 survey, we found no evidence to support this view. Indeed we found that in general, heavy and other users had the same level of community involvement, and in the area of communications, heavy users appeared to have higher levels.

    We also found that Internet involvement appeared to have a positive impact on participation in the 1996 general election. We found that Internet users were more likely than non-users to engage in traditional political activity, including voting, controlling for demographic differences; the importance of traditional media (print and television) was not weakened in the eyes of Internet users; and the Internet also provided a platform for a significant amount of additional forms of political activity. Further we found no evidence that heavy and light users, and long-term and short-term users differed in terms of real world political activity, including voting.

    Hence, rather than bolstering the view that cyberspace is eroding community and political involvement - and that the Internet constitutes a retreat from "real life" - the preponderance of evidence in our surveys appears to support an alternative interpretation of this technology's impact, namely that the Internet increases community and political participation as well as social and familial involvement.

    Findings: New ways of expression - Considerable friendship creation via the Internet

    Cyberspace is increasingly seen as a medium for social interaction, despite ongoing skepticism that the technology is inimical to meaningful social interactions. Our results show that a substantial minority of Internet users (14 percent) in our survey had established friendships via the Internet. Those with greater Internet experience or skills appeared more likely to make friends via the Internet. There appeared to be only weak or in most cases non-existent statistical relationships with demographic variables, measures of traditional forms of interaction, and measures of personality attributes.

    Those making friends via the Internet reported a significant number of such friendships -70 percent reported four or more Internet friends. Those with longer experience of the Internet reported more friendships. Of those who developed friendships through the Internet, three out of five reported meeting one or more of their Internet friends. Overall, our survey suggests that the Internet is indeed a medium where friendships can be developed; that Internet friendships frequently lead to face-to-face meetings; and that success at friendship creation appears more related to Internet experience and skills than social and personality characteristics

    Civic action on the Internet: We have investigated the extent to which the Internet facilitates civic participation by considering K- 12 funding/reform and respiratory health support groups. We examined both "wired" and "non-wired" groups to try to understand what makes some groups highly successful in using the Internet, while others do not consider the Internet as a means of organizing at all. Three main issues emerged from our study. First, barriers to the use of the Internet are cultural rather than technical or financial; barriers exist in the lack of awareness of the potential of the Internet, and the perceived negative aspects of the Internet. Second, there are characteristics of groups that make them good candidates for early adoption; for example, groups searching for alternative solutions to pressing personal problems, such as chronic or life-threatening illnesses. Third, a key value of the Internet is its transformation of the social context of information exchange to facilitate a more open and considered bi-directional flow across social boundaries.

    There has been much speculation that Internet communication alters cultural processes by changing the basis of social identity, thereby displacing the socially grounded identities of everyday synchronous discourse. Despite these adverse speculations we have found evidence that socially grounded interaction exists everywhere in cyberspace. Empirical examples include: list discourse that illustrates the importance of authentic identity in Internet professional groups; secondary research suggesting electronic communication is most successful as one genre in a communication repertoire; cases of home page self-presentation mediated through socially defined links; and evidence that the "virtualness" and alleged anonymity of the Internet are illusory and therefore could not over time support a plausibly disembodied, fragmented "self".

    Future research topics

    We seek to broaden our understanding in each of the three areas, as follows:

    Access: Issues relating to the equity of access and barriers to use will continue to be important for the next decade or more. In particular, the concept of barrier needs to be extended to factors (such as complexity and credibility of the information provided) which limit or even prevent meaningful use of the Internet.

    1. On the assumption that the Internet is to be a universal service we need to chart the movement in the digital divides we have identified, to help inform the public policy debate.
    2. In addition, we need to understand more fully people's routes to the Internet and how these affect their long-term interest in being Internet users. In particular, we need to know the proportion of Internet users who only have access to the Internet through their work or education, and the restrictions this form of access places on them.
    3. We also need to expand and deepen our understanding of the barriers to Internet usage encompassing such issues as, concerns about privacy, protection of children, and the quality of Internet information.
    Impact on existing social infrastructures: Among a very wide range of societal infrastructures likely to be transformed by the Internet, we are keen to examine the impact of the Internet on education, rural communities, other media (newspapers and magazines, television, radio), job searching/skill enhancement, political empowerment and governance.
    1. Education - the Internet offers the potential for offering a whole range of innovative educational programs for all ages on an as-and-when needed basis. We need to know how this potential can be tapped and how education via the Internet can be integrated with traditional forms of education.>
    2. Social and economic support for rural communities - the Internet could be an important medium for community and economic development in rural areas. We need to know more about the barriers to the Internet specific to rural areas; how rural areas are using/could be using the Internet to support economic and community activity; and the extent the Internet is addressing/could be addressing feelings of social/cultural isolation.
    3. The impact on other media - the use of the Internet is altering how we spend our leisure time, where we get our information and how we form our opinions. The other media are beginning to adjust to this technology. But what will be the long-term impact of the Internet on these other media?
    4. Participating in the world of work - the Internet could revolutionize the workings of the job market - job vacancies posted on websites, personal home pages giving work experience, job-related training via the Internet, on-line work cooperatives, and job counseling via chat rooms. We need to know how to prepare existing and soon-to-be workers to take advantage of these new services.
    5. Impact on traditional and non-mainstream political groups - the Internet offers new ways of recruiting members, of reaching out to existing members, and of delivering political messages to decision-makers. We need to know how the Internet is being used in the political debate, what types of groups are best able to exploit the Internet, and whether the use of the Internet for political purposes is strengthening or weakening American democracy.
    6. Political empowerment and governance - via the Internet, users have almost immediate access both to their elected representatives and to public officials. In an era of down-sized government will elected representatives /public officials be able to handle this influx of messages, comments and information, and will users feel satisfied with the responses?
    New ways of expression via the Internet: Among a group of societal infrastructures that will be created through the Internet, we would like to investigate infrastructures centered on volunteerism, and cultural expression and religion. Cuffing across the development of new infrastructures are the issues of authenticity of Internet interactions and credibility of Internet information - both crucial to effective use of the Internet.
    1. Community volunteerism - many believe that volunteerism is in decline - can the Internet be used to stop this decline? The Internet offers a new medium for recruiting volunteers, mobilizing these volunteers, and delivering services to needy groups. We would like to extend our preliminary research on civic participation via the Internet to seek to answer a number of questions: To what extent have community groups used the Internet? What has been the result? What are the keys to successful use of the Internet by volunteer groups?
    2. Cultural expression and religious practices - the Internet is increasingly the venue of cultural and religious activities. In light of growing concern over religion and moral values in society, it would be helpful to know how these new form of religious expression are affecting major denominations, small sects and individual religious observers.
    3. Quality of Internet interactions - given our research on the Internet and community involvement, and friendship creation via the Internet, the next questions would appear to revolve around the degree people find satisfaction and authenticity in cyberspace, and the extent to which participation in the Internet and related communication processes creates novel structures, relationships, and "knowledge networks."
    4. Assessing the quality of Internet information - the breadth, depth and variety of information available on the Internet is exploding, but how will the quality of this information (for example, health care information) be assessed and what will be the impact of the easy accessibility of information on traditional sources of information (for example, the medical profession). We need to know how users assess the quality of the information available on web-sites and the extent users are prepared to act on this information.

    Emphasis on systematic national surveys to provide insights on policy issues

    We have outlined an ambitious agenda. A key to our approach is to use systematic, comparative data (quantitative and qualitative) from all regions of the country. This is in contrast to isolated case studies, which though beneficial, tend not to help create a baseline upon which policy makers can find a footing. In sum our goal is to provide the insights and data which can highlight policy problems in an addressable way.

    Biographical notes

    James E. Katz, Ph.D., is a professor of communication at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, and senior scientist at Bellcore (Bell Communications Research), New Jersey. He, along with Philip Aspden, has examined a variety of issues concerning the Internet and its societal consequences. He is also an expert in privacy policy. Dr. Katz received his training in sociology. Most recently he has been involved in the World Wide Web Consortium and U.S. National Science Foundation planning exercises for research on knowledge networks.

    Philip Aspden, Ph.D., is the executive director of the Center for Research on the Information Society (CRIS), Pennington, New Jersey. He has consulted in telecommunications and technology-based economic development for a wide range of high-tech firms, public bodies, and foundations, in both the U.S. and Europe. Earlier, he was a scientific civil servant in the British Civil Service and a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Vienna, Austria. Dr. Aspden received his training in mathematics and operations research.

    Major reports and published papers

      (Also available are slides from Dr. Aspden's talk at the University of Michigan School of Information on February 2, 1998)