Content uploaded by Azi Lev-On
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Azi Lev-On on Oct 21, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
DIGITAL DIVIDE, ISRAEL 2008.
Figures
Figures - uploaded by Azi Lev-On
Author content
All figure content in this area was uploaded by Azi Lev-On
Content may be subject to copyright.
... The social media create a platform for communications for a dynamic consortium of people utilizing social network sites, forums and discussion groups, blogs, and online games in a manner that enables individuals with a common interest to interact continually ( Boyd and Ellison, 2007;Bradley, 2006;Heinlein and Kaplan, 2010). The percentage of social media users in Israel is higher among Jews, the young, the more educated, and seculars ( Lev-On and Lissitsa, 2010). ...
The current study analyzes whether cross-cultural communication through online social
platforms between immigrants from the Former Soviet Union and different sectors of
veteran Israelis reduces social distances and facilitates immigrants’ integration. The
research was conducted through an online survey of 296 Former Soviet Union immigrants
who use social media sites in Hebrew. The findings show a positive impact of
online contacts, only on social distances toward groups with very different cultures
from Former Soviet Union immigrants: Arabs and ultra-orthodox Jews. Online contacts
were found not to have a positive impact on social distances between immigrants and
veteran Israelis from the dominant culture. In other words, online contact was not
found to contribute to the social integration of Former Soviet Union immigrants, but
the social media were found to have the potential to narrow cleavages in Israeli society
by reducing stigmas and alienation.
This article is part of a pioneering study which analyses Internet usage by some 600 candidates for heads of 156 local authorities in Israel in the municipal campaigns of 2008. Despite the importance attributed to the municipal elections in the Arab-Palestinian sector in Israel, the high turnout rate, the competitiveness of the elections and the continuing penetration of the Internet, it was scarcely used by candidates, compared to about 50% usage by candidates who competed in municipalities with Jewish populations. Interviews suggest that beyond access gaps, additional obstacles impede the usage of the Internet as an effective political tool in the Arab-Palestinian sector.
Former residents of the evacuated Gush Katif region, once parts of closely-knit and cohesive communities, have been spread across Israel in temporary settlements since the disengagement (2005). The goal of this study is to learn how the evacuees interact with one another to organize politically and to retain their social capital, focusing on Katif.net, the major Internet site in use by the former residents of Gush Katif. This is an unusual case of a virtual community that continues to thrive online even as its offline predecessor has been evacuated.
This article focuses on the concept of empowerment and the ways in which the Internet is being utilized as an empowering tool. This analysis ranges from the personal to the global levels and the consequences of that empowerment are also discussed. We propose a four-level model that serves to explain what we term E-empowerment and the effects that can be observed at each of the four levels, ranging from (1) the personal; (2) the interpersonal; (3) group; and (4) citizenship. The potential for future development of E-empowerment is also discussed.
In this article, the authors analyze the popular search queries used in Google and Yahoo! over a 24-month period, January 2004-December 2005. They develop and employ a new methodology and metrics to examine and assess the digital divide in information uses, looking at the extent of political searches and their accuracy and variety. The findings indicate that some countries, particularly Germany, Russia, and Ireland, display greater accuracy of search terms, diversity of information uses, and sociopolitical concern. Also, in many English-speaking and Western countries most popular searches were about entertainment, implying a certain gap within these countries between the few who search for economic and political information and the many who do not.
Computer networks are social networks. Social affordances of computer-supported social networks – broader bandwidth, wireless portability, globalized connectivity, personalization – are fostering the movement from door-to-door and place-to-place communities to person-to-person and role-to-role communities. People connect in social networks rather than in communal groups. In-person and computer-mediated communication are integrated in communities characterized by personalized networking.
Les réseaux informatiques sont des réseaux sociaux. Les possibilités sociales qu’offrent les réseaux sociaux informatisés – bande passante plus large, portabilité sans fil, connectivité mondiale, personnalisation – sont en train de favoriser le passage de communautés de porte-à-porte et de lieu-à-lieu vers des communautés d’individu-à-individu et de rôle-à-rôle. Ainsi, les gens se lient davantage dans des réseaux sociaux que dans des collectivités. Les communications directes et via l’informatique sont intégrées dans des communautés caractérisées par un maillage personnalisé.
This paper looks at the prevalence of creative activity and sharing in an age when the barriers to disseminating material have been considerably lowered compared with earlier times. The authors use unique data to explore the extent to which young adults create video, music, writing and artistic photography, as well as the prevalence of sharing such material online. Findings suggest that despite new opportunities to engage in such distribution of content, relatively few people are taking advantage of these recent developments. Moreover, neither creation nor sharing is randomly distributed among a diverse group of young adults. Consistent with existing literature, creative activity is related to a person's socioeconomic status as measured by parental schooling. The novel act of sharing online, however, is considerably different by gender with men much more likely to engage in it. However, once internet user skill is controlled for, men and women are equally likely to post their materials on the Web.
The authors of this paper contend that as Internet penetration increases, students of inequality of access to the new information technologies should shift their attention from the "digital divide" - inequality between "haves" and "have-nots" differentiated by dichotomous measures of access to or use of the new technologies - to digital inequality, by which we refer not just to differences in access, but also to inequality among persons with formal access to the Internet. After reviewing data on Internet penetration, the paper describes five dimensions of digital inequality - in equipment, autonomy of use, skill, social support, and the purposes for which the technology is employed - that deserve additional attention. In each case, hypotheses are developed to guide research, with the goal of developing a testable model of the relationship between individual characteristics, dimensions of inequality, and positive outcomes of technology use. Finally, because the rapidity of organizational as well as technical change means that it is difficult to presume that current patterns of inequality will persist into the future, the authors call on students of digital inequality to study institutional issues in order to understand patterns of inequality as evolving consequences of interactions among firms' strategic choices, consumers' responses, and government policies.
Digital and national divides in Israel
- M Avidar
Avidar, M. 2009. Digital and national divides in Israel. MA thesis. University
of Haifa: Department of sociology and anthropology.