Awards, Articles, and Announcements

Awards

Eszter Hargittai received a two-year grant worth $309,000 from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for the study of college students’ internet uses, skills, and participation. She also received a $25,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for diary data collection using text messaging.

Sue Barnes, Rochester Institute of Technology, received an NSF grant to study social networks in education. She also had an article on Alan Kay published in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.

Articles

Dobransky, K. and E. Hargittai (2006). The disability divide in internet access and use. Information, Communication and Society, 9, 313-334.

Based on data from the Current Population Survey, we look at the IT uses of people with disabilities. We find that people with disabilities are less likely to live in households with computers, are less likely to use computers and are less likely to be online.

However, once we control for socio-economic background, we find that people with hearing disabilities and those who have limited walking ability are not less likely to be Internet users than people who do not report having such disabilities.

Freese, J, Rivas, S. & Hargittai, E. (2006). Cognitive ability and internet use among older adults. Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media and the Arts 34, 236-249.

This paper looks at the relationship between cognitive ability and four aspects of Internet use among older adults: having high-speed access, length of time since initial household adoption, self-reported time using the Internet, and whether any of the respondent's Internet use involves the Web in addition to email. We also look at availability of social support for Internet use. Results suggest strongly that the already cognitively advantaged are much better positioned to reap the potential benefits of online tools.

Hargittai, E. & Shafer, S. (2006). Differences in actual and perceived online skills: The role of gender. Social Science Quarterly. 87, 432-448.

Using unique data about the online abilities of one hundred randomly sample adults, we find that men and women do not differ greatly in their online abilities. However, results suggest that women's self-assessed skill is significantly lower than that of men despite similar actual abilities.

This paper on gender differences in actual and perceived online skills was widely covered by the press in 2006 including articles devoted to it in the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, Seattle Times, San Jose Mercury News and Women's Health Magazine.

Announcements

Adam and Mary Beth Earnheardt are the proud parents of Katherine Elizabeth, born April 27. They have one other daughter, Ella, two years old. Adam was also appointed Assistant Professor, tenure track, and Basic Course Director at Youngstown State University. Adam was also appointed Book Review Editor of the Journal of Communication Studies.

Lynn Kelly has been promoted to the Director of the School of Communication at the University of Hartford.

Arul Chib graduated this summer with a Ph. D. from the Annenberg School of Communication, the University of Southern California and has joined the faculty of Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Web 2.0 or Consumer Generated Content

Web 2.0, or the Idea Agora, represents a  significant shift in control of marketing information.  It is an issue that has been heavily covered in the popular press, but relatively overlooked in academic research. We seek proposals (2-5 page with title and extended abstract) or completed chapters for a book on consumer-generated content, to be published by IGI Global in 2008.  For details, please see http://euphrates.wpunj.edu/faculty/godars/Web20_book.html or contact Susan H. Godar (GodarS@wpunj.edu) or S. Pixy Ferris (FerrisS@wpunj.edu)

Have you published recently?  Changed schools?  Earned tenure? Been awarded a grant? Please let Shannon or Rodney know by July 22.