2. Who is using New Media?

Question 1

1. Generational Divide

Answer 1

• Sociologists argue that there is a generational divide in use of new media
• Boyle: new media is often associated with young people.
• Experience of young people growing up in the UK in 2008 is different from previous generations in terms of familiarity with a wider range of media.
• Boyle notes that there has always been a generational divide in media use since the emergence of youth cultures in the 1950s.
• Boyle: adult anxieties about media remain the same, but the media environment has become bigger.
• Cultural commentators worry about influence and accessibility of pornography on the internet.

• Boyle: key difference in the media that young people use is it’s immediacy and accessibility.
- Young people use the internet for entertainment and social networking

• Ofcom: 70% of 16 to 24 year olds use sites such as MySpace and Bebo
- These trends mean young people today are probably more media-savvy.
• However, 40% of adults use networking sites such as Facebook.
- Average age of the online gamer is 33 years.

Ofcom (2018): 83% of 12-15 year olds have their own smartphone

Question 2

2. Class Divide

Answer 2

• Poor are excluded from the super information highway because they lack the material resources to plug into this new media revolution.

• Digital underclass who cannot afford to keep up with MC technological elite.
• 80% of the richest bracket of households in the UK have internet access
• 11% of the poorest bracket

• MORI Survey: Men, people aged 16 to 54 who work and people who have educational qualifications are more likely to be internet users
- Women , people aged 55+, those who don’t have educational qualifications and those not in work are less likely to be internet users.

• Boyle: in 2005 40% of households did not have a digital TV.
• A digital divide exists between those who can afford new tech (e.g. personal computers) and those who cannot.

Question 3

3. Gender Divide

Answer 3

• Ofcom: girls aged 12 to 15 are more likely than boys to have a mobile phone, use the internet and listen to the radio.

• Only when it comes to playing computer and console games do boys overtake
• Girls are more likely than boys to use the web as a communication tool.

• Li and Kirkup: found significant gender differences between men and women.

• Men were more likely than women to use email or chat rooms.
• Men played more computer games
• Men were more self-confident about their computer skills
• Men more likely to express the opinion that using computers was a male skill.

Question 4

4. Global Divide

Answer 4

• On the whole, the US and Western Europe generate most of the content of the worldwide web.

• 2004: fewer than three out of every 100 Africans used the internet.
- Average of 50% inhabitants of the G8 use the internet. (home to 15% of world’s population)
- G8 countries also had 50% of the world’s internet users
• 85% of the web is written in English despite less than 10% of the world’s population speaking English.

• Seaton: economic and social inequalities of the off-line world mirror the online world.
- 6% of the world who regularly use the net are mostly affluent Westerners.

Question 5

Summary:

Answer 5

1. Generational Divide
2. Class Divide
3. Gender Divide
4. Global Divide