Search results

The present study provides an overview of the historical as well as the global expansion of Facebook from developed countries to the developing countries. The chapter also provides an elaboration over the features and the architectural design of this Online Social Networking service. In order to understand the worldwide usage and acceptance of Facebook, and the gradual spread of Facebook from the United States to the European countries and then to the developing world, we need to pay close attention to the evolution of Facebook in these cultures. In comparison to the developed world, Facebook was slow to spread throughout developing countries. This chapter argues that certain conditions contributed to the expansion of Facebook in these countries. The growth of mobile technology and the usage of Facebook in multiple languages accelerated the increase in its membership. Although majority of the developing countries started using Facebook later than developed countries, within a few years they soon became the nations with the highest growth of Facebook users.

In four years, Twitter has grown from a fledgling text message-based start-up company to a powerful communication tool embraced by companies worldwide as a mandatory marketing tool. This chapter outlines the growth of the service, how it has changed communication, and the basic knowledge needed to use the service. The chapter expands on that basic knowledge to demonstrate how the service can be used in a higher education setting. Based on the overarching principle that all social media should involve two-way communication, this chapter provides a basic strategy for departments in all colleges and universities – admissions, media relations, career center, alumni, and more – to Act and Interact on social media to boost school pride, develop relationships, and build brand equity. Finally, because social media is an ever-evolving medium, this chapter outlines some of the cutting edge uses of Twitter that are likely to develop over the next five years.

The concept and practice of e-services has become essential in business transactions. Yet there are still many organizations that have not developed e-services optimally. This is especially relevant in the context of Indonesian Airline companies. Therefore, many airline customers in Indonesia are still in doubt about it, or even do not use it. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for e-services adoption and empirically examines the factors influencing the airlines customers in Indonesia in using e-services offered by the Indonesian airline companies. Taking six Indonesian airline companies as a case example, the study investigated the antecedents of e-services usage of Indonesian airlines. This study further examined the impacts of motivation on customers in using e-services in the Indonesian context. Another important aim of this study was to investigate how ages, experiences and geographical areas moderate effects of e-services usage.

The study adopts a positivist research paradigm with a two-phase sequential mixed method design involving qualitative and quantitative approaches. An initial research model was first developed based on an extensive literature review, by combining acceptance and use of information technology theories, expectancy theory and the inter-organizational system motivation models. A qualitative field study via semi-structured interviews was then conducted to explore the present state among 15 respondents. The results of the interviews were analysed using content analysis yielding the final model of e-services usage. Eighteen antecedent factors hypotheses and three moderating factors hypotheses and 52-item questionnaire were developed. A focus group discussion of five respondents and a pilot study of 59 respondents resulted in final version of the questionnaire.

In the second phase, the main survey was conducted nationally to collect the research data among Indonesian airline customers who had already used Indonesian airline e-services. A total of 819 valid questionnaires were obtained. The data was then analysed using a partial least square (PLS) based structural equation modelling (SEM) technique to produce the contributions of links in the e-services model (22% of all the variances in e-services usage, 37.8% in intention to use, 46.6% in motivation, 39.2% in outcome expectancy, and 37.7% in effort expectancy). Meanwhile, path coefficients and t-values demonstrated various different influences of antecedent factors towards e-services usage. Additionally, a multi-group analysis based on PLS is employed with mixed results. In the final findings, 14 hypotheses were supported and 7 hypotheses were not supported.

The major findings of this study have confirmed that motivation has the strongest contribution in e-services usage. In addition, motivation affects e-services usage both directly and indirectly through intention-to-use. This study provides contributions to the existing knowledge of e-services models, and practical applications of IT usage. Most importantly, an understanding of antecedents of e-services adoption will provide guidelines for stakeholders in developing better e-services and strategies in order to promote and encourage more customers to use e-services. Finally, the accomplishment of this study can be expanded through possible adaptations in other industries and other geographical contexts.

There has been a digital transformation of the sport industry that has resulted in an increase in the number of startups. Technological innovations derived from big data and social media have altered the way entrepreneurship is embedded in a sport context. This has influenced more technologically enabled sport startups that are driving change in the global economy. This chapter discusses the role of digitalization in changing existing business models and fostering a more entrepreneurial ecosystem. This includes focusing on technological innovations such as the impact of cloud computing and other data changes.

Children and young people’s time is generally structured by adults’ ideas and interests, be it in the family (sleeping or eating times), in the social world (time of school) or in the cultural realm (holidays and festivities). Children’s autonomy of how they spend their time is reduced to certain spaces, which again are assigned to them by adults. For the past two decades, digital media has entered many people’s – adults as well as children’s and young people’s – everyday life.

With the omnipresent and growing use of digital media by young people – fueled even more by mobile devices – grows a discourse around possible (negative) effects and supposedly necessary pedagogical monitoring and restrictions of their digital media time.

These discussions regarding negative effects on well-being and school performance include formal recommendations for limiting the quantity of time spent online. Hereby, mainly the digital time outside school is addressed and potentially problematized. Despite numerous studies on the effects of digital media time on different aspects of young people’s lives there is little research asking for children’s and young people’s perspectives on digital media use and time.

This study uses questionnaires (509) and qualitative interviews (15) to explore young people’s perspectives in terms of meaning, quality and quantity of the time spent with digital media. The participants were youth aged 12–20 from northern Germany. Using qualitative content analysis, findings point to a necessary differentiation between the purpose of usage, respective effects and evaluations.

Accordingly, being online can be an act (a) of self-actualization including positive effects creating great meaning for well-being, identity and appropriation of the digital world for their own future, (b) a waste of time when, for example, using social media or gaming to pass the time including a feeling that time is accelerated and rushing, personal regrets and references to loss of control and the need for self-control, and (c) a pragmatic naturalization of the digital as one part of life for various individual or social purposes and developments.

The article discusses young people’s evaluations and perspectives addressing the possibly artificial adult differentiation of analog and digital time or activities as well as adults’ presumptions about young people’s digital time and the strive for control resulting from these. Additionally, insights from the circumstances of the COVID-19 lockdown are included in gaining knowledge about what is actually important and rewarding when young people spend time digitally. The chapter aims at an intergenerational understanding of the significance of digital media in young people’s lives questioning alarmist scenarios of a generation that is lost in the digital world.

The post-millennial or Generation Z constitutes people born in 1997 or after. This study theorizes how news consumption habits of the post-millennial generation are reshaping the news. As the newest generation of media users, Generation Z or the post-millennials, comprising people born in 1997 or after, will inherit the millennial legacy. Generation Z has embraced the visual, verbal, and viral aspects of digital and social media platforms. They rarely engage with traditional news sources, which they deem as nearly extinct.

Based on 2019 meta-analytical research review of 16 key studies (published between 2017 and 2019) of media consumption habits of post-millennials, this research study delineates news consumption habits of post-millennials. It theorizes how this new generation of media users are embracing the visual, verbal, and viral media to reshape news content. The propensity of the post-millennials to participate in the news cycle shapes their rapidly changing preferences and usage patterns.

Over the years, news consumption has varied among different age groups. Newspapers and television were popular with the Silent generation, comprising people born between 1928 and 1945. The Internet significantly transformed media use among baby boomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1964, and Generation X, which constitutes people born between 1965 and 1980. The rise of social media has significantly transformed media use of millennials or Generation Y, born between 1981 and 1996. They were the first generation to come of age in the new millennium.

Unlike Generation X and boomers, the post-millennials or Generation Z sparsely engage with traditional news sources they deem as nearly extinct, including print media such as newspapers and magazines. They rarely watch television news or listen to radio. They report different news values with less concern about accuracy and more attention toward entertainment and interaction.

In recent times the relationship between social stratification and internet use has become more complex. In order to understand the new configuration of the digital divide, this paper examines the relationship between socioeconomic background and digital engagement among youths.

This study explores digital inequalities among Italian teenagers from a holistic perspective. It draws on primary data obtained with a triangulation of methods: a survey on a representative sample of 2,025 high school students and 56 semi-structured interviews with teenagers from different social classes.

The statistical models indicate that cultural capital and parents’ occupational status do not associate with broader social media use but are positively related with online information-seeking. The interpretative analysis suggests that teenagers from the upper-middle class make sense of the internet “vertically,” in affiliation with parental socialization, and are more concerned with capital enhancing activities. Instead, teenagers from less advantageous social contexts appropriate the internet “horizontally,” jointly with peers, and are mostly interested in social-networking and UGC production.

School track, along with parents’ socioeconomic status and cultural capital, influences teenagers’ internet use. Further studies could explore whether school tracking contributes to digital inequalities.

The study extends Annette Lareau’s theory of parenting styles and social reproduction, but also obtains innovative results related to digital inequalities among youth. Contrary to expectations, teenagers from less advantageous social backgrounds enrolled in vocational schools have better chances to actively participate in social media than teens from the upper-middle class in academic-oriented high schools.