Information and Communications Technologies in Scociety: E-Living in a Digital Europe (Routledge Studies in Innovation, Organization and Technology)

296 Pages·2007·2.59 MB·English

by  Ben Anderson

Information and Communication
Technologies in Society
With new information and communication technologies now an integral part of
society, it has been claimed that we are in a period of almost revolutionary social
change. Computers are a universal tool in all leading economic nations, and increas-
ingly becoming so in poorer countries. The Internet is a tool of daily life for hun-
dreds of millions, while third-generation mobile phones will soon be the norm.
New, less hierarchical networks of communication are being developed, and new
goods and services are proliferating. Services and information can be acquired virtu-
ally instantly.
However, this book refutes simplistic assumptions about the effects of these
developments on society. It offers a range of empirical chapters that question the
extent to which new technologies have actually changed society. The chapters range
from qualitative studies of new users to analysis of quantitative longitudinal data
and large-scale international comparative surveys. Together they cover a range of
issues, such as recent trends in take-up, migration of skilled people, the economic
impact of broadband, the digital divide, environmental implications, and issues to
do with work, such as employability or the role of telework. It also seeks to answer
major questions of welfare, such as the effect of the new technologies on social
capital and on quality of life, and the relationship of the new developments with
gender equality.
The book argues that the changes it identifies are the result of a complex inter-
action of social and technological change that is producing widespread but mostly
weak changes when viewed close up and over short timescales. We should therefore
re-think the simple macro-economic model that supposes that increased quality of
life or any other social benefits will automatically follow from technical innovation.
Ben Anderson is Deputy Director of Chimera, a research institute of the Univer-
sity of Essex, UK, and is also a visiting researcher at the University of Essex’s Insti-
tute for Social and Economic Research. Malcolm Brynin is a sociologist at the
Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, primarily
interested in research on education skills and technology. Jonathan Gershung is
Professor of Sociology at Oxford University. Yoel Raban is a Senior Research
Fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center for Technology Analysis and Forecasting
(ICTAF) in Tel Aviv University.
Routledge studies in innovation, organization and
technology
1 Innovation in the U.S. Service Sector
Michael P. Gallaher, Albert N. Link and Jeffrey E. Petrusa
2 Information and Communications Technologies in Society
E-living in a digital Europe
Edited by Ben Anderson, Malcolm Brynin, Jonathan Gershung and Yoel Raban
Information and
Communication Technologies
in Society
E-living in a digital Europe
Edited by Ben Anderson,
Malcolm Brynin, Jonathan Gershung
and Yoel Raban
First published 2007
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
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© 2007 Selection and editorial matter, Ben Anderson, Malcolm
Brynin, Jonathan Gershung and Yoel Raban individual chapters, the
contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-96823-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0-415-38384-6 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-203-96823-9 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-38384-4 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-96823-9 (ebk)
Contents
1 Introduction 1
M A L C O L M B R Y N I N , B E N A N D E R S O N A N D
Y O E L R A B A N
2 Trends in ICTs 18
Y O E L R A B A N
3 Digital divides and choices reconfiguring access:
national and cross-national patterns of Internet
diffusion and use 31
W . H . D U T T O N , A . S H E P H E R D A N D C . D I G E N N A R O
4 The social impact of broadband Internet in the
home 46
B E N A N D E R S O N A N D Y O E L R A B A N
5 The mysterious east: pluses and minuses in the
e-Europe equation 62
M A R I A B A K A R D J I E V A
6 Gender and ICTs 78
T A L S O F F E R A N D Y O E L R A B A N
7 ICT use and the elderly: cohort, lifestage or just
irrelevant? 88
D E B O R A H D I D U C A , C A R O L I N E P A R T R I D G E A N D
J E R O E N H E R E S
vi Contents
8 UK Children Go Online: a child-centred approach
to the experience of using the Internet 104
S O N I A L I V I N G S T O N E A N D M A G D A L E N A B O B E R
9 Web-use and Net-nerds: the impact of information
technology in the home 119
J O N A T H A N G E R S H U N Y
10 Telework transitions and the quality of life 136
B E N A N D E R S O N A N D B I R G I T T E Y T T R I
11 Informal social capital and ICTs 150
R I C H L I N G
12 Social capital, quality of life and ICTs 163
B E N A N D E R S O N
13 Civic participation and ICTs 175
J E R O E N H E R E S A N D F R A N K T H O M A S
14 ICTs and growth potential 189
J O C H E N D E H I O A N D R A I N E R G R A S K A M P
15 The relative gains from computer usage and skills:
a gender perspective 198
M A L C O L M B R Y N I N
16 The use of ICTs in the workplace: opening the
black box 208
B R A M S T E I J N A N D K E A T I J D E N S
17 What does telework tell us about teleworkers? 222
L E S L I E H A D D O N A N D M A L C O L M B R Y N I N
18 Have information and communication technologies
changed the patterns of high-skilled migration? 233
M I C H A E L R O T H G A N G A N D C H R I S T O P H M . S C H M I D T
19 Electronic waste and dematerialisation 249
A L B E R T O P A S Q U I N I A N D L O R E N Z O V I C A R I O
Contents vii
20 Sustainable business in the digital society 263
V I D H Y A A L A K E S O N A N D J A M E S G O O D M A N
21 Conclusion: a slow start? 274
J O N A T H A N G E R S H U N Y
Index 281
1 Introduction
Malcolm Brynin, Ben Anderson and Yoel Raban
Who can doubt that new technologies, especially information and commu-
nication technologies (ICTs), are now an integral part of a society profoundly
different from that which has gone before? Computers are a universal tool
in all leading economic nations and increasingly so in the poorer countries.
The Internet is a tool of daily life for hundreds of millions, while third-
generation mobile phones will soon be the norm. New, less hierarchical net-
works of communication are being developed and new goods and services are
proliferating. Services and information can be acquired virtually instantly.
For some time it has been asserted that we are, or soon will be, in a period of
revolutionary social and economic change as fundamental as the Industrial
Revolution (Drucker, 1969; Bell, 1973; Dutton et al., 1999; Castells, 2000).
Much analysis of the social importance of new technology examines the
effects of technological innovation in people’s everyday lives. Does the new
technology lead to a qualitative shift in the way we run our lives – making it
more efficient, more fulfilling, richer or, of course, possibly the reverse of all
of these? But the findings of some research hint at a more fundamental social
change, of the emergence of a new form of society where the new technologies
are held to variously erode, create, rework, but alternatively simply transform,
for good or ill (and sometimes simultaneously), the way people perform many
important aspects of their lives (Kraut et al., 1998, 2002; Franzen, 2000,
2003; Nie, 2001; Wellman et al., 2001; Gershuny, 2003). Each finding is
implicitly treated as the tip of a hidden iceberg. What is hidden is the future.
However, radical change is unlikely, and not only because of the deflation
of the dot-com bubble. The parallel with the Industrial Revolution (and
indeed the label ‘revolution’) is unconvincing on numerous counts – as,
indeed, we were forewarned (Trabner, 1986; Schnaars, 1989). In a particu-
larly well-argued critique, May (2001) suggests that there are four linked
tenets of the ‘revolution’:
• social revolution,
• transformation of economic relations,
• changes in political practices and the communities involved,
• terminal decline of the state and its authority.