An exploratory study was conducted examining Internet usage among African-American college students. The study examined both psychosocial correlates, including technological anxiety and racial identity as well as socioeconomic measures, as they impacted Internet usage. Additionally, three distinct measures of Internet usage, thin access, thick access and the Internet Connectedness Index (ICI), were used as criterion variables in three separate multiple regression analysis (MRA) models. The results of the study found differences in predictive validity based on the criterion variable used, with the ICI accounting for the greatest amount of variance (54%). Racial identity, in terms of internal beliefs and feelings about being African American and internalization of Afrocentric values in a political context were found to be predictive of Internet usage as measured by the ICI.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the relationship between the digital divide and the Latino-White achievement gap in online education. Through an analysis of archival enrollment and academic performance data a comparison was conducted between online and face-to-face courses by ethnicity. Additionally, academic performance data was then compared to survey responses from online students on digital motivation, material access, internet skills, and internet usage. Findings and recommendations for future research are discussed and provided to continue the exploration of disparities of digital access and academic performance in an effort to inform decisions in higher education.

The contemporary world is continuously evolving and changing. This can be ascribed to technological development. There exists an expanding digital realm that is changing the way society interacts with its surroundings and context. Interior design is a discipline that alters existing structures. This dissertation explores the role of interior design in adapting existing structures to technological development, focusing on digital development. Theories concerning hybrid design were investigated and compared in order to generate a design approach to the problem. Contextual analysis was done in order to establish important factors that would contribute to the generation of an appropriate programme. Thereafter precedents were analysed in order to supplement the body of knowledge. The final product is a mixed-use facility which includes an electronic book (e-book) publishing facility for Van Schaik Publishers as well as a facility for the contextual public where interaction with digital media is facilitated. The dissertation provides a project that acts as a mediator between the material and digital realms. Simultaneously, the product acts as a catalyst for bridging the great ‘digital divide’ one finds in a country like South Africa, where the larger population has no access to the digital realm. / Dissertation MInt(Prof)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Architecture / MInt(Prof) / Unrestricted

A l’ère de la troisième révolution internet, celle de l’internet des objets (IoT), beaucoup d’espoir sont tournés vers les technologies numériques pour développer les économies et notamment dynamiser le commerce local. Dans les pays du Maghreb, en Tunisie notamment, ses espoirs sont tournés du côté de la demande. Plus précisément, à l’issu du printemps arabe, et en raison du rôle qu’ont joué les réseaux sociaux (Facebook notamment) pour mobiliser les jeunes à manifester dans les rues de Tunis, le nouveau ministère du commerce fonde ses espoirs dans cette population jeune pour développer le commerce électronique. Partant de ce constat, cette thèse propose d’étudier si les jeunes tunisiens sont les early adopters qui permettront de diffuser le commerce électronique en Tunisie. Pour cela, la problématique de recherche porte sur les facteurs d’adoption du commerce électronique par les jeunes en Tunisie. Pour répondre à cette question de recherche, la thèse propose dans un premier temps de dresser l’état des lieux de la diffusion de l’internet au sein d’un population de jeunes étudiants. Préalablement, elle propose dans la première partie de la thèse un état des lieux de la couverture du territoire en technologies d’accès aux services numériques. Cet état des lieux est discuté à l’appui d’une revue de la littérature sur la fracture numérique. Dans un deuxième temps, elle propose une analyse empirique et exploratoire menée auprès d’un échantillon de 400 étudiants tunisiens environ. Cette étude porte sur les facteurs d’adoption de l’internet et des services marchands (commerce électronique). Structurée en deux parties, le premier volet de l’enquête est exploité à l’aide de statistiques économétriques et le deuxième volet mobilise les méthodes d’analyse d’équations structurelles. Les résultats de la thèse montrent que si l’usage de l’internet est relativement bien diffusé auprès des jeunes tunisiens, la disposition à adopter le commerce électronique doit en revanche être encouragée. Pour cela, un modèle d’adoption est proposé en deuxième partie de la thèse. Il met en évidence quels facteurs favorisent ou inhibent l’adoption du commerce électronique en Tunisie. Les résultats de ce modèle et des travaux menés dans la partie 1 permettent dans la partie conclusive de la thèse de formuler différentes recommandations à l’égard des entreprises engagées dans un projet de mise en ligne de leur activité commerciale d’une part, et d’autre part envers les acteurs publics pour favoriser l’adoption des services internet marchands en Tunisie. / In the era of the third Internet revolution, that of the Internet of Things (IoT), a lot of hope is turned to digital technologies to develop economies and boost local trade. In the Maghreb countries, especially in Tunisia, those hope are turned on the demand side. More specifically, at the end of the Arab Spring, and because of the role played by social networks (Facebook in particular) to mobilize young people to demonstrate in the streets of Tunis, the new Ministry of Commerce hopes in this population young to develop e-commerce. Based on this observation, this thesis proposes to study whether young Tunisians are the early adopters who will disseminate e-commerce in Tunisia. For this, the research problematic focuses on the factors of adoption of e-commerce by young people in Tunisia. To answer this research question, the thesis proposes at first to draw up the inventory of the diffusion of the internet within a population of young students. Before doing so, we propose in the first part of the thesis an inventory of the technologies territory’s coverage of the access to digital services. This inventory is discussed in support of a review of the literature on the digital divide. In a second step, she proposes an empirical and exploratory analysis conducted with a sample of about 400 Tunisian students. This study focuses on the adoption factors of the Internet and market services (e-commerce). Structured in two parts, the first part of the survey is exploited using econometric statistics and the second part uses structural equation analysis methods. The results of the thesis show that while the use of the internet is relatively well distributed to young Tunisians, the willingness to adopt e-commerce should be encouraged. For this, an adoption model is proposed in the second part of the thesis. It highlights what factors encourages or inhibit the adoption of e-commerce in Tunisia. The results of this model and the work carried out in Part 1 allow in the concluding part of the thesis to make various recommendations to companies engaged in a project to put their commercial activity online on one hand, and on the other hand towards the public actors to encourage the adoption of the internet marketing services in Tunisia.

The thesis deals with the global information flows and its aim is to find factors which influence them. Firstly, the visibility of the country in international news is explored, i.e. which countries are dominantly represented in the international news. Secondly, the exposure of the country towards international news is observed, i.e how countries vary in the openness towards the international news. The thesis also seek to reveal factors which have an impact on the visibility of the country and on the exposure. The thesis consists of a recherche part with the theory of globalization and a quantitative analysis based on the dataset from 2014-2017. The thesis concludes that countries are represented unevenly with few dominant countries (the most dominant country is China, followed by USA and Ukraine) in the international news and that the most exposed countries have been found small developing countries (Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, etc.) from South America. Regarding the factors of visibility of the country, the highest impact has the size of population,and also GNI and the presence of violent correlated. On the contrary, all factors impacting the exposure of the country were found statistically insignificant.

Digitaliseringen fortsätter att utvecklas inom kommuner genom den nya föreskriften för digitaliseringen av detaljplaner. Studien syftar till att analysera äldres förutsättningar att ta del av kommuners planarbete med hänsyn till digitaliseringen av planprocessen. Detta görs med utgångspunkt i tre kommuner och med fokus på tillgänglighet. Digitaliseringen öppnar upp nya sätt att inkludera kommunernas medborgare men samtidigt riskerar de äldre som samhällsgrupp att hamna i ett digitalt utanförskap. Studien genomfördes genom intervjuer med planarkitekter från Varbergs kommun, Trollhättans Stad och Karlskronas kommun samt en projektledare från Pensionärernas Riksorganisation (PRO). Studien visar att kommunerna arbetar med tillgänglighet genom digitalisering på olika sätt. Kommunerna menar att de inte fokuserar på tillgängligheten specifikt för äldre, vilket resulterar i slutsatsen att det finns en risk att de äldre exkluderas från planprocessen, när allt fler delar av den digitaliseras. / Digitization continues to develop within municipalities through the new regulation for the digitization of detailed plans. This study aims to analyze the pre-conditions of the elderly to take part in municipalities' planning work regarding digitization. This is done based on three municipalities, with a focus on accessibility. Digitization creates new ways of including the citizens of the municipalities, but it also creates the risk of exclusion of the elderly as a social group. The study was carried out through interviews with planning architects from Varbergs kommun, Trollhättans Stad, and Karlskrona kommun, as well as a project manager from the Pensionärernas Riksorganisation (PRO). The study shows that the municipalities work with accessibility through digitization in different ways. The municipalities mentioned that they do not focus on accessibility specifically for the elderly, which leads to the conclusion that the elderly may risk exclusion from the planning process, as it becomes digitized.

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The final thesis deals with the mapping of the use of network media as one of the tools of political communication during events, that are called Arab Spring (Arab revolution). It is based on the hypothesis, that some people in non-democratic countries are able to effectively deal with information and are able to spread it efficiently among themselves and beyond their country through network media. All this despite of the fact that in these modes is censorship, restriction or Internet blocking. It provides the evidence, that the use of the network media is, that they help to inform the world about events in the country, that held protests or riots. Social networks are not used to organize and coordinate protests, as they were often attributed by the media. Network media acted more as an alternative channel of information to the outside of the country.

In his dissertation thesis, the author elaborates on a new position from which both information society theory and digital divide research could be analyzed as active participants in a large-scale societal reconstruction. The text begins with the reconstruction of the argumentation core of information society theories, which is then utilized when choosing their latest, most respected, and most elaborated version. In the following chapter, the author presents the composition of Manuel Castells' information society theory and its tight relationship with the digital divide issue. In the final parts of this chapter, the author reveals the key position of the digital divide issue in solving the contradictions and negative aspects of informatization. The chapter is concluded by finding out the absence of the link between digital divide and information society theory in the preceding criticism of Castells' work. In the fourth part, the development, arguments, and empirical evidence of the digital divide research are presented, followed by identification of the limits of contemporary academic digital divide discourse. In the sixth chapter, the author tries to overcome these limits by proposing a new empirical evidence better fitting model of the digital divide. The thesis is concluded by thinking over the...

Digitalization has made it possible for organizations to propose value to their customers through digital services. Meanwhile, due to digital development, the digital divide has increased in society, since many older adults do not know how to use the proposed digital services.   The purpose of this study was to investigate the challenges and dilemmas that older adults face within digital services and how organizations can co-create value with older adults to maintain them and attract them as their customers. This study aimed to analyze existing data, but also to embrace new findings, therefore, an abductive approach has been used. Seven interviews were accomplished, one with the head of sales development at our case organization Skånetrafiken, and six interviews with older adults, who contributed with their thoughts about the digitalization, digital services, and value.   The digital divide does not only depend on the digitalization but also that older adults feel forgotten as customers since they do not follow with the digital development, which leads to older adults not knowing how to use digital services. Organizations may co-create value with older adults through a change of mindset, education, information, and interaction. Moreover, this may lead to that organizations attract and maintain older adults as their customers, meanwhile minimize the digital divide.   The context of this study has a few limitations that may affect trustworthiness. Firstly, only one region was taken into consideration. Secondly, this study could have contained more participants in interviews with older adults. Lastly, due to Covid-19, there was no possibility of having physical interviews, which set limits for reading body language and facial expressions. However, future researchers may consider these limitations and hopefully can contribute to more research on this widespread topic.   Although the findings are related to the cases of older adults and Skånetrafiken, this study contributes with original insights into the field of the digital divide, older adults, and value co-creation.