WINTER SCHOOL - Capturing digital inequality: Tools and techniques for empirical social science research in the digital age, presented by Associate Professor Eszter Hargittai
Many of the questions being asked about digital media's social, political, cultural and economic implications assume universal outcomes across population segments.
Many inquiries tend to take for granted that there is one overarching answer that applies to all cases. Questions such as "Does Internet use influence political participation?", "Are digital media democratizing the public sphere?", "Does the Internet help people find jobs?", "What is the relationship between playing video games and one’s health?" often disregard that the answers may not apply uniformly across different population segments.
This workshop will address both theoretical and methodological issues related to studying digital inequality. It will focus on disparities in people’s online experiences and practices, whilst exploring the challenges that digital inequality pose for Internet research and social science research more generally. Given persisting inequality in online engagement across population groups, research on a myriad of topics must be conscious of online disparities in order to avoid drawing mistaken conclusions resulting from biased samples.
Eszter Hargittai is Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Faculty Associate of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University where she heads the Web Use Project. She is also Fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Hargittai's research focuses on the social and policy implications of digital media with a particular interest in how differences in people's Web-use skills influence what they do online. She is editor of Research Confidential: Solutions to Problems Most Social Scientists Pretend They Never Have (University of Michigan Press 2009). Her work has received awards from the American Sociological Association, the Eastern Sociological Society, the International Communication Association, the National Communication Association and the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference. For more information, see eszter.com and webuse.org.
Hosted by: ISSR, The School of Social Science and The School of Journalism and Communication
Contact: Carly Jordin, 07 3365 2690, c [dot] jordin [at] uq [dot] edu [dot] au
Cost: $100 (includes catering)
Registration: Complete the registration form, Winter School Registration form,Capturing digital inequality: Tools and techniques for empirical social science research in the digital age and return by 2 July 2012 (limit 35)
