[Nettime-bold] New Studies of the Internet

[Willard Uncapher <willard@well.com>]

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 

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