Thesis (M.A.I.S.)--Oregon State University, 2010. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 51-56). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-138).

Thesis (M.Ed.)--Acadia University, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-101). "Appendix A: Web sites": leaves 102-104. Also available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Research paper (M.I.M.)--Victoria University of Wellington, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Internet use is considered a lever for empowering patients, levelling inequalities and reducing healthcare expenditure. However, with digital inclusion, health provision quality and health system efficiency high on the UK and EU policy agendas, we need to better understand the relationship between Internet use and health outcomes to assess potential benefits and adverse effects. This research addresses the question of how Internet use influences individuals' health service use and their perceived health in the context of England. Focusing on health information-seeking, it analyses variations across different kinds of users, mechanisms between Internet use and both health outcomes, and the role of individual and contextual factors in this relationship. To answer this question, this research uses a mixed methods approach. Quantitative data from the Oxford Internet Surveys (OxIS), the English census and Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) was connected through spatial microsimulation based on output areas. Qualitative data was collected through semi-structured, face-to-face interviews, primarily with former OxIS participants from output areas in the quantitative strand. The quantitative data was revisited based on emerging interview themes. The results indicate that Internet use influences perceived health and health service use via various mechanisms based on the Internet's content, mediation and connection affordances. However, the boundaries between users and non-users are blurry and outcomes vary for different types of individuals, classified here as learners, pragmatists, sceptics, worriers, delegators and adigitals. Age, education, socioeconomic status, long-term health conditions, and geographic context influence Internet use and health outcomes separately, while the social context shapes their relationship too. These findings advance the theoretical understanding of Internet-based health outcomes, and provide practical implications for health professionals and policymakers with insights down to the local level. Moreover, this research demonstrates how novel insights for public wellbeing can be derived from qualitatively enriched secondary data in privacy-preserving and cost-effective ways.

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Daniel Pansarelli / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ABC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Humanas e Sociais, 2016. / Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo explicitar aspectos da influência dos internautas na obra de autores contemporâneos, para isso foram escolhidos três cronistas brasileiros: Xico Sá, Antônio Prata e Gregório Duvivier. Pretendemos problematizar os conceitos de autoria e de autoria compartilhada com o desenvolvimento da comunicação de muitos para muitos, característica do ciberespaço. O gênero escolhido é a crônica, por conta de sua incidência nesse espaço e pelos temas constitutivos dos textos deste gênero. O referencial teórico adotado neste trabalho é centrado em autores clássicos de análise do discurso e autores que tratam dos impactos das novas tecnologias na comunicação, na cultura e no discurso. / This paper aims to clarify influential aspects of internet users in the work of contemporary authors. For that, three Brazilian writers were chosen: Xico Sá, Antônio Prata and Gregório Duvivier. We intend to discuss the concepts of authorship and shared authorship with the development of communication from many to many, cyberspace feature. The chosen genre is chronicle, because of its impact in this space and for the constitutive themes present in discourse analysis and also authors who write about the impact of new communicational technologies in culture and in discourse.

Orientador: Silvia Selingardi-Sampaio / Banca: Elson Luciano Silva Pires / Banca: Silvia Ap. Guarnieri Ortigoza / Banca: José Luis Bizelli / Banca: Paulo Roberto Jóia / Resumo: Entre as inovações tecnológicas, a Internet, sem dúvida, é a que mais fascina o homem devido às suas possibilidades de contatos à distância, de produção e de distribuição de conteúdos. Mas, apesar do crescimento acelerado do número de usuários apresentado nos últimos anos, esse espaço virtual não está ainda ao alcance de qualquer pessoa. Existem fatores importantes na definição das condições possibilitadoras para que o indivíduo possa ser um cidadão virtual. Conhecer o usuário da rede mundial de computadores para entender esses fatores é o objetivo da presente pesquisa. Esse indivíduo desenvolve atividades no virtual, mas sua base de vida continua a ser o real, por isso, o espaço delimitado para o estudo sobre o usuário é Rio Claro, município localizado no eixo do desenvolvimento do Estado de São Paulo. Uma cidade, onde, teoricamente, existiriam todas as condições possibilitadoras e facilitadoras para a utilização da Internet. Desvendando o internauta como grupo, a pesquisa propõe uma geografia do usuário da rede, como forma de conhecer os fatores de acesso e contribuir para que os atuais excluídos possam também ser cidadãos virtuais / Abstract: The Internet is certainly the technological innovation that most amazes people due to its possibility to distance contact, production and distribution of contents. But, despite the fast increase of the number of internet users displayed in recent years, this virtual space is still not within anyone's reach. There are important factors in defining enabler's condition for the individual can be a virtual citizen. The goal of this research is to know the user's global network of computers to understand such factors. These individuals carry out activities in the virtual space, but their base of life continues to be real, so the space delimited for the study on the user's is Rio Claro, a municipality located in the axis of development of São Paulo state. A city where, theoretically, there would be all conditions for enabling and facilitating the use of the Internet. Cracking the internet user as a group, the research proposes geography of the network user, as a way of knowing the factors of access and contributes to the current excluded people may also become virtual citizens / Doutor

The tourism industry has been identified as the industry with the most potential to create jobs and contribute largely to economic growth. In order to live up to this potential, tourism businesses need to create tourism products for potential tourists which need to be promoted successfully through a number of mediums. The use of the Internet as a medium for promoting and selling tourism products is increasing, however, in order for tourism businesses to successfully promote the tourism product through the Internet, they have to understand the needs and wants of their current and potential target markets. One segment of the tourism market that has come under increasing attention is the mature traveller market. This market is defined as travellers who are 50 years of age and older. Generally, the mature traveller market is viewed as a small homogenous group of old consumers with little or no spending power. However, evidence suggests that this market is comprised of an increasing number of diverse people, who use the Internet and like to spend on tourism products. Therefore, this research will examine differences between Internet users and Internet non-users in the mature traveller market. Specific attention will be paid to investigate differences in demographic, socioeconomic, Internet use and travel-related characteristics. The identification of these characteristics will enable a profile to be d~veloped for each group, which can be used by tourism businesses to effectively promote tourism products over the Internet to the mature market In order to collect data from potential respondents, a questionnaire which was used in a similar study conducted in the US was used. Data was collected using a convenience sample of Internet users and Internet non-users from the Eastern Cape and Gauteng provinces of South Africa. Cronbach alpha and factor analysis were used to assess the reliability and validity of the research instrument and measurement scales. In order to test whether differences did exist between the two groups the Chi-square and t-test statistics were used. Finally in order to examine which factors where influential in differentiating between Internet users and Internet non-users discriminant analysis was employed. The findings in the present study suggest that there are significant differences in demographics, socioeconomic, Internet use and travel-related characteristics between Internet users and Internet non-users in the mature market. By understanding the differences between Internet users and Internet non-users, tourism businesses can identify marketing strategies that appeal to mature travellers who use the Internet and to those do not, by utilising information gathered from Internet users and Internet non-users demographic, socio-economic and travel-related characteristics.

Parents’ perceptions of their adolescent children’s Internet use significantly influences the parental mediation strategies they choose to use with their children. The motivation for this explorative research study was to understand the impact of psychological and social influences on users of the Internet in South Africa. Both locally and internationally, there is a focus on the use of digital Internet devices to facilitate education. Access of South Africans to the Internet, whether for social or educational use does not exist in a vacuum, exempt from the bidirectional forces of the individual and the environment they use the Internet in, whether it is family or academic. This study firstly focusses on how parents perceive their adolescent children’s Internet use, and secondly, how they parent their children’s use of the Internet. The common topics and themes that emerged from this study allow for the development and provision of professional services that individuals, couples, families, and groups require for the use of, or exposure to the Internet. This study uses an explorative-descriptive qualitative research design with an interpretive paradigm and snowball sampling. The qualitative research design focussed on the concepts of self-reflexivity, context, and thick description while utilizing multivocality of 1) international and South African research on cyber citizenship, including cyberbullying, cyber harassment, and legal consequences, with 2) psychological aspects of the psychosocial developmental challenges of adolescents from the iGeneration including the benefits, risks, and dangers of using the Internet, and 3) qualitative data collected from semi-structured interviews with parents from Generation X who are raising and educating a generation of children on the other side of the Digital Divide. Tracy’s 8 ‘Big-Tent’ criteria for guiding excellence in qualitative research and Tesch’s model of content analysis was used during the content analysis process. Themes and sub-themes that emerged from the analysis of the participants’ narratives included 1) experiences: positive and negative, 2) observations: behavioural changes and gender differences, 3) parenting methods: parental interaction, rules, and limits, 4) concerns: risks, and 5) opinions: personal views. This research study provides a thick description of South African and international literature and combines the literature with the voices of the participants and the researcher to produce discussions based on the findings of this qualitative study. Conclusions, recommendations, and limitations of this study informed future research on cyber citizenship by providing a detailed understanding of the context of South African parents and children, the psychosocial developmental challenges of adolescents and, how educational programmes can be best created to effectively impact on the generations of parents, teachers and children in South Africa.

Parents’ perceptions of their adolescent children’s Internet use significantly influences the parental mediation strategies they choose to use with their children. The motivation for this explorative research study was to understand the impact of psychological and social influences on users of the Internet in South Africa. Both locally and internationally, there is a focus on the use of digital Internet devices to facilitate education. Access of South Africans to the Internet, whether for social or educational use does not exist in a vacuum, exempt from the bidirectional forces of the individual and the environment they use the Internet in, whether it is family or academic. This study firstly focusses on how parents perceive their adolescent children’s Internet use, and secondly, how they parent their children’s use of the Internet. The common topics and themes that emerged from this study allow for the development and provision of professional services that individuals, couples, families, and groups require for the use of, or exposure to the Internet. This study uses an explorative-descriptive qualitative research design with an interpretive paradigm and snowball sampling. The qualitative research design focussed on the concepts of self-reflexivity, context, and thick description while utilizing multivocality of 1) international and South African research on cyber citizenship, including cyberbullying, cyber harassment, and legal consequences, with 2) psychological aspects of the psychosocial developmental challenges of adolescents from the iGeneration including the benefits, risks, and dangers of using the Internet, and 3) qualitative data collected from semi-structured interviews with parents from Generation X who are raising and educating a generation of children on the other side of the Digital Divide. Tracy’s 8 ‘Big-Tent’ criteria for guiding excellence in qualitative research and Tesch’s model of content analysis was used during the content analysis process. Themes and sub-themes that emerged from the analysis of the participants’ narratives included 1) experiences: positive and negative, 2) observations: behavioural changes and gender differences, 3) parenting methods: parental interaction, rules, and limits, 4) concerns: risks, and 5) opinions: personal views. This research study provides a thick description of South African and international literature and combines the literature with the voices of the participants and the researcher to produce discussions based on the findings of this qualitative study. Conclusions, recommendations, and limitations of this study informed future research on cyber citizenship by providing a detailed understanding of the context of South African parents and children, the psychosocial developmental challenges of adolescents and, how educational programmes can be best created to effectively impact on the generations of parents, teachers and children in South Africa.