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Research
Please consider visiting my Research site WebUse.Org for more up-to-date
information including links to my most recent publications.
This page lists my publications in chronological order (my CV lists them
by type and then chronological order). On this page, you will find links
to pre-print copies of most publications. If something is not online,
please send me an email at contact06-at-eszter-dot-com to request a
copy. Clicking on the title of a publication will lead you to a page with an abstract, an outline and acknowledgements in addition to
the paper itself, when available.
Legend
A = refereed journal article
C = book chapter
E = edited volume
O = other (research notes, etc.)
Clik here for most updated
list.
C10. The
Role of Expertise in Navigating Links of
Influence
Eszter Hargittai.
2008. In The Hyperlinked Society. Edited
by Joseph Turow and Lokman Tsui.
Ann Arbor, Michigan: The
University of
Michigan Press.
In this essay, I focus on how the influence of links may be mediated
by the skills and expertise associated with using the Internet both from
the content producer's and the content viewer's perspective. My main
argument is that while lots of factors influence how links are presented
on the Web and how users' respond to the content that shows up on their
screens, an important and understudied aspect of navigating links of
influence concerns people's Internet user abilities. Both content creators
and content users (readers, listeners, viewers) can benefit from a more
in-depth understanding of how the Web works. Since such skills are not
randomly distributed among the population, certain content providers and
content users stand a better chance of benefiting from the medium than
others. Relevant know-how will help producers attract attention to their
materials. Savvy about the medium will assist users in sidestepping
potentially misleading and malicious content.
C09.
A Framework for Studying Differences in People's Digital Media Uses
Eszter Hargittai
2007. In Cyberworld Unlimited. Edited by Nadia Kutscher and
Hans-Uwe
Otto
VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften/GWV Fachverlage GmbH. Pp.
121-137.
Information technologies have become a staple of adolescents' lives
with young people among the most connected in countries that have seen
high levels of Internet and cell phone diffusion by the first decade of
the 21st century (Livingstone and Bober 2004; National Telecommunications
and Information Administration 2004). However, merely knowing various
digital media's rates of use says little about how young people are
incorporating IT into their everyday lives. Ignoring nuanced measures of
use, it is difficult to determine whether digital media are leveling the
playing field for youth or whether they are raising new barriers for some
while advantaging the societal positions of others. While many have
suggested that we must move past the binary classification of haves and
have-nots when it comes to information technology uses, few have offered a
detailed conceptual framework for such an undertaking, one that can then
inform empirical studies of usage differences. This chapter considers the
various domains in which users of the Internet may possess different
levels of know-how. In addition to presenting the conceptual framework,
it also draws on unique data about a diverse group of young people's
Internet uses to illustrate existing differences along the lines of the
discussed dimensions.
A20.
The Social, Political, Economic, and Cultural Dimensions of
Search Engines: An
Introduction
Eszter Hargittai
2007. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 12(3), article 1.
Search engines are some of the most popular destinations on the
Web, understandably so given the vast amounts of information available to
users and the need for help in sifting through online content. While the
results of significant technical achievements, search engines are also
embedded in social processes and institutions that influence how they
function and how they are used. This special theme section of the Journal
of Computer-Mediated Communication explores these non-technical aspects of
search engines and their uses.
A19.
Cognitive Ability and Internet Use Among Older Adults
Jeremy Freese, Salvador Rivas and Eszter Hargittai
2006. Poetics. 34(4):236-249. August-October.
While previous work has found cognitive ability to be strongly
associated with whether older adults use the Internet, we consider whether
cognitive ability also differentiates basic aspects of use. Four measures
of use are considered: having high-speed access, length of time since
initial household adoption, self-reported time using the Internet, and
whether any of the respondents. Internet use involves the Web in addition
to email. In all cases, we find associations with cognitive ability,
although effects are sometimes mediated to nonsignificance by subsequent
attainments, especially education. Given how central social support is to
discussions of older adults navigating the Internet, we look also at
reports of the availability of such support, and we find that cognition is
positively related to respondents having someone available to help them
with Internet problems. Taken together, our results suggest strongly that
the already cognitively advantaged are much better positioned to reap the
potential benefits of online tools to help older adults navigate social
benefits and make complicated decisions.
A18. The Disability
Divide in Internet Access and Use
Kerry Dobransky and Eszter Hargittai
2006. Information, Communication and Society. 9(3):313-334.
The increasing spread of the Internet holds much potential for enhancing
opportunities for people with disabilities. However, scarce evidence
exists to suggest that people with disabilities are, in fact,
participating in these new developments. Will the spread of information
technologies (IT) increase equality by offering opportunities for people
with disabilities? Or will a growing reliance on IT lead to more
inequality by leaving behind certain portions of the population including
people with disabilities? In this paper, we draw on nationally
representative data about Americans' Internet uses to (1) identify the
extent to which people with disabilities are embracing use of the
Internet; (2) how their use of the Internet compares to the Internet uses
of the rest of the population; (3) how having a disability relates to and
interacts with other social statuses (e.g. socio-economic status, age,
gender) with regard to Internet use; and (4) what explains these trends.
We draw on representative data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
and the Census of the United States to answer these questions. 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. Our research enables a
deeper understanding of both the use of the Internet by people with
disabilities and the spread of new IT more generally.
A17. Differences in
Actual and Perceived Online Skills: The Role of Gender
Eszter Hargittai and Steven Shafer
2006. Social Science Quarterly. 87(2):432-448. June.
The literature on gender and technology use finds that women and men
differ significantly in their attitudes toward their technological
abilities. Concurrently, existing work on science and math abilities of
students suggests that such perceived differences do not always translate
into actual disparities. There has been little work exploring gender
differences with respect to Internet use ability, especially based on a
diverse sample of adult users. We use new data on Web-use skill to test
empirically whether there are differences in men's and women's abilities
to navigate online content. Findings suggest that men and women do not
differ greatly in their online abilities. However, we find that women's
self-assessed skill is significantly lower than that of men. We discuss
the implications of these findings for social inequality with respect to
Internet use.
C07. Content Diversity
Online: Myth or Reality?
Eszter Hargittai
2007. In Media Diversity and Localism: Meanings and
Metrics
Edited by Philip Napoli. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
pp. 349-362.
With literally billions of Web pages constituting the publicly
available Web, it is reasonable to assume that diverse types of material
are easily available to users. Nonetheless, it remains an empirical
question to see whether people actually access the vast diversity of
resources theoretically available to them online. In this chapter, I draw
on data about people's actual online behavior to assess whether users
visit diverse types of content on the Web or whether their online
information-uses mirror off-line behaviors. Findings suggest that although
people turn to a variety of sources for information online, their actions
seem to resemble off-line media consumption patterns. I explore why these
behaviors are not necessarily a reflection of user preferences, rather
they are at least in part a function of how content is organized and
presented online, and skill differences among users.
A16. Hurdles to
Information Seeking: Spelling and Typographical Mistakes
During
Users'
Online Behavior
2006. Journal of the Association of Information Systems.
6(12)
A refined approach to digital inequality requires that in addition to
looking at differences in access statistics we also examine differences
among Internet users. People encounter numerous hurdles during their
online information-seeking behavior. In this paper, I focus on the
likelihood of Internet users to make spelling or typographical mistakes
during their online activities. Information seeking on the Web often
requires users to type text into forms. Users sometimes make mistakes,
which can have hindering effects on their browsing efficiency because they
may get derailed to irrelevant sources or encounter errors. I draw on data
collected from in-person observations with a diverse sample of one hundred
Internet users to see what explains users' tendency to make spelling and
typographical mistakes and the frequency with which they encounter such
errors. I find that education level is a significant predictor one's
likelihood to make mistakes suggesting that existing social inequalities
translate into differences in online behavior.
C06. Toward a Social Framework
for Information
Seeking
Eszter Hargittai and Amanda Hinnant
2004. In New Directions in Human Information
Behavior.
Edited by Amanda Spink and Charles Cole.
New York: Springer.
In this chapter, we focus on new directions in the development of a
social framework for understanding the information behavior of
well-targeted groups in society. We explore how one's social positioning
influences one's information behavior which, in turn, influences the
information-seeking behavior of the populations studied. We concentrate
especially on human information behavior (HIB) through information
technologies, but base our discussion in a more general framework of HIB
encompassing other sources. We integrate work from information science,
sociology and other disciplines to argue for a more holistic approach to
the study of HIB. We outline both conceptual and methodological challenges
facing the field of HIB and, for each, suggest specific directions for
future research.
A15. Survey Measures of
Web-Oriented Digital Literacy
Eszter Hargittai
2005. Social Science Computer Review. 23(3):371-379. Fall.
This paper presents survey measures of Web-oriented digital literacy
to serve as proxies for observed skill measures, which are much more
expensive and difficult to collect for large samples. Findings are based
on a study that examined users' digital literacy through both observations
and survey questions making it possible to check the validity of survey
proxy measures. These analyses yield a set of recommendations for what
measures work well as survey proxies of people's observed Web-use skills.
Some of these survey measures were administered on the General Social
Survey 2000 and 2002 Internet modules making the findings relevant for the
use of existing large-scale national data sets. Results suggest that some
composite variables of survey knowledge items are better predictors of
people's actual digital literacy based on performance tests than measures
of users' self-perceived abilities, a proxy traditionally used in the
literature on the topic.
A14. Do You "Google"?
Understanding Search Engine Use Beyond the Hype
2004. First Monday. 9(3)
Much anecdotal evidence suggests that Google is the most popular search engine. However, such claims are rarely backed up by data.
The reasons for this are manifold, including the difficulty in measuring search engine popularity and the multiple ways in which the
concept can be understood. Here, I discuss the sources of confusion related to search engine popularity. It is problematic to make
unfounded assumptions about general users' search engine choices because
by doing so we exclude a large number of people from our
discussions about systems development and our understanding of how the average user finds information online.
A13. Classifying and Coding Online
Actions
2004. Social Science Computer Review. 22(2):210-227.
Summer.
Research on how the Internet is diffusing across the population has broadened from questions about who uses the medium to what people do
during their time online. With this change in focus comes a need for more detailed data on people's online actions. In this paper, I
provide a method for coding and classifying users' online information-seeking behavior. I present an exhaustive list of ways in which a
user may arrive at a Web page. The proposed methodology includes enough nuanced information to distinguish among different search
actions and links. In its entirety, the coding scheme makes it possible to understand many details about the users' sequence of actions
simply by looking at the spreadsheet containing the information proposed in this paper. I also demonstrate the utility of this coding
scheme with findings from a study on the online information-seeking behavior of 100 randomly selected Internet users to exemplify the
utility of this coding and classification scheme.
C05. Digital
Inequality: From Unequal Access
to Differentiated Use
(with Paul DiMaggio, Coral Celeste and Steven Shafer)
2004. In Social Inequality. Edited by Kathryn Neckerman.
New
York:
Russell Sage Foundation.
This paper reviews what we know about inequality in access to and use of new digital technologies. Until recently, most research has
focused on inequality in access (the "digital divide"), measured in a variety of ways. We agree that inequality of access is important,
because it is likely to reinforce inequality in opportunities for economic mobility and social participation. At the same time we argue
that a more thorough understanding of digital inequality requires placing Internet access in a broader theoretical context, and asking a
wider range of questions about the impact of information technologies and informational goods on social inequality. In particular, five
key issues around which we structure this paper.
(1) The digital divide. Who has access to the Internet, who does not have access, and how has this changed?
(2) Is access to and use of the Internet more or less unequal than access to and use of other forms of information technology?
(3) Inequality among persons with access to the Internet.
(4) Does access to and use of the Internet affect people's life chances
(5) How might the changing technology, regulatory environment and industrial organization of the Internet render obsolete the findings
reported hear?
A12. Internet Access and Use in Context
2004. New Media and Society. 6(1):137-143
Over the past five years, thousands of articles have appeared in academic
journals about new media, the Internet and the web. The topics range from
identity expression in online communities to how new media may affect
political participation and voter turnout. The range of questions is both
overwhelming and exciting. At the core of all these explorations lies a
more basic question, however: Who uses new media and - equally importan -
who does not? It is an important baseline measure for putting into the
appropriate context all other studies of new media use. In this short
review piece, I look at three books that consider the "digital divide" at
different levels
and focus on different dimensions of access
and use and offer thoughts on how this research agenda needs to move
forward.
C04. The Digital Divide and What
To
Do About It
2003. New Economy Handbook. Edited by Derek C. Jones.
San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
In a society where knowledge-intensive activities are an increasingly important component of the economy, the distribution of
knowledge across the population is increasingly linked to stratification. Much attention among both academic researchers and in
policy circles has been paid to what segments of the population have access to the Internet or are Internet users. Although the
medium has seen high rates of diffusion, its spread has been unequal both within and across nations. In this chapter, I look at (a)
individual-level inequality in Internet access and use in the United States, (b) cross-national variation in connectedness, and (c)
inequality from the side of content producers in gaining audiences for their material online.
C03. The Changing
Online Landscape:
From Free-for-All to Commercial
Gatekeeping
2004. Community Practice in the Network Society: Local
Actions/Global
Interaction.
Edited by Peter Day and Doug Schuler. New York: Routledge.
pp.66-76.
Much of the literature on Internet use looks at the behavior of users in isolation from institutional factors that also affect how
people use the medium. This chapter looks at how decisions at the organizational level influence what people do online and more
specifically, how they find their way to information on the Web. Big point-of-entry sites make strategic business decisions about
how to organize and present content to users. The results of search engines, the layout of portal sites, the way people are
directed from one site to another may all influence what type of content people find and view online. Since big portal sites are
driven by a need to make a profit, their decisions on what content to feature are not necessarily based on the quality and
relevance of the Web sites they present to users. Companies spend great financial resources on gaining prominent positions on
portals and in the results listings of search engines. Thus, exposure seems to be increasingly connected to financial means. What
are the implications of this for not-for-profit Web sites? Non-profits have fewer resources to spend on promoting their online
presence. After discussing the ways in which financial considerations affect much of what content is easily accessible online, the
paper suggests ways in which non-profits can also gain exposure to relevant audiences without large expenditures.
A11. New
Social Survey Perspectives on the Digital Divide
(with John Robinson and Paul DiMaggio)
2003. IT & Society. 1(5):1-22. Summer.
A10. Serving Citizens' Needs:
Minimizing Online
Hurdles to Accessing Government Information
2003. IT & Society. 1(3) Winter.
With the rapid spread of the Internet across society, government
institutions are taking advantage of digital technology to
distribute materials to citizens. Is merely having a Web site enough, or are there certain usability considerations site creators
must keep in mind to assure efficient public access to online materials? This project looked at typical people's ability to locate
various types of content online, in particular, their ability to find tax forms on the Web. Findings suggest that people look for
content in a myriad of ways, and there is considerable variance in how long people take to complete this online task. Users are
often confused by the ways in which content is presented to them. In this paper, two common sources of confusion in users' online
experiences with locating tax forms online are distinguished: (1) URL confusion, and (2) page design layout. Ways are also
suggested to decrease these two sources of frustration, yielding less exasperating and more productive user experiences.
C02. Informed Web Surfing: The Social Context of User
Sophistication
2003. in Society Online: The Internet in Context
Edited by
P.Howard
and S.Jones.
Sage Publications.
C01. Untangling the Tangled Net: Symmetry and the Internet
2002. in Symmetry 2000.
Edited by I. Hargittai and
T. Laurent.
London: Portland Press Ltd.
A09. Beyond Logs and Surveys:
In-Depth Measures of People's Online Skills
2002. Journal of the American Society for Information Science
and
Technology.
53(14):1239-1244.
Finding information on the Web can be a much more complex search
process than previously experienced on many pre-Web information retrieval
systems given that finding content online does not have to happen via a
search algorithm typed into a search field. Rather, the Web allows for a
myriad of search strategies. Although there are numerous studies of Web
search techniques, these studies often limit their focus to just one part
of the search process and are not based on the behavior of the general
user population, nor do they include information about the users. To
remedy these shortcomings, this project looks at how people find
information online in the context of their other media use, their general
Internet use patterns, in addition to using information about their
demographic background and social support networks. This article describes
the methodology in detail, and suggests that a mix of survey instruments
and in-person observations can yield the type of rich data set that is
necessary to understand in depth the differences in people's information
retrieval behavior online.
A08. Second-Level
Digital Divide: Differences in People's Online Skill
2002. First Monday. 7(4).
Much of the existing literature on the digital divide - the
differences between the "haves" and "have nots" regarding access to the
Internet - limits its scope to a binary classification of technology use
by only considering whether someone does or does not use the Internet. To
remedy this shortcoming, in this paper I look at the differences in
people's online skills. In order to measure online ability, I assigned
search tasks to a random sample of Internet users from a suburban county
in the United States. My findings suggest that people search for content
in a myriad of ways and there is considerable difference in whether
individuals are able to find various types of content on the Web and a
large variance in how long it takes to complete online tasks. Age is
negatively associated with one's level of Internet skill, experience with
the technology is positively related to online skill, and differences in
gender do little to explain the variance in the ability of different
people to find content online.
A07. The
Social Implications of the Internet
(with Paul DiMaggio, Russell Neuman and John Robinson)
2001. Annual Review of Sociology. 27:307-336.
The Internet is a critically important research site for sociologists
testing theories of technology diffusion and media effects, particularly
because it is a medium uniquely capable of integrating modes of
communication and forms of content. Current research tends to focus on the
Internet's implications in five domains: 1) inequality (the "digital
divide"); 2) community and social capital; 3) political participation; 4)
organizations and other economic institutions; and 5) cultural
participation and cultural diversity. A recurrent theme across domains is
that the Internet tends to complement rather than displace existing media
and patterns of behavior. Thus in each domain, utopian claims and dystopic
warnings based on extrapolations from technical possibilities have given
way to more nuanced and circumscribed understandings of how Internet use
adapts to existing patterns, permits certain innovations, and reinforces
particular kinds of change. Moreover, in each domain the ultimate social
implications of this new technology depend on economic, legal, and policy
decisions that are shaping the Internet as it becomes institutionalized.
Sociologists need to study the Internet more actively and, particularly,
to synthesize research findings on individual user behavior with
macroscopic analyses of institutional and political-economic factors that
constrain that behavior.
A06. Defining
a Global Geography
(with Miguel Angel Centeno)
2001. American Behavioral Scientist. 10(44):1545-1560
Globalization involves a variety of links expanding and tightening a web
of political, economic and cultural inter-connections. Individual data
indicate that we are undergoing a process of compression of international
time and space and an intensification of international relations. Yet,
individual data sources tell us little more than that. This article offers
an alternative approach to studying globalization by highlighting the
possible contributions of network methods to the field. We argue that
using relational data helps in uncovering the intertwined nature of the
emerging global order.
A05. Standing Before the Portals:
Non-Profit Content in the Age of Commercial Gatekeepers
2000. info 2(6):543-550. December.
A04. Open Portals or Closed Gates:
Channeling Content on the World Wide Web
2000. Poetics. 27(4):233-254.
This paper looks at what the tension between information abundance and attention scarcity implies for the diversity of information
accessible to users of the World Wide Web. Due to limited user attention, there is a role for gatekeepers in the online content
market. Sites that catalog Web content and primarily present themselves as content categorization services are argued to be the
gatekeepers in the new information age. Identifying the mechanisms by which they organize content is essential to understanding how
user attention is allocated to information available on the Web. Theories about media content diversity are delineated to suggest
what we may expect with respect to content diversity online. Methods for future empirical investigation are suggested. Finally, the
policy implications of the argument are presented.
A03. Radio's
Lessons for the Internet
This paper compares the early years of the radio and the Internet to
show how communication media tend toward regulation both with respect to
use authorization and content/information dissemination.
A02. Weaving the
Western
Web:
Explaining Differences in Internet Connectivity Among OECD
Countries
1999. Telecommunications Policy. 23(10/11):701-718.
Despite the Internet's increasing importance, there is little
social scientific work that addresses its diffusion. Our
knowledge is especially limited with respect to the conditions
that encourage its spread across nations. This paper takes a
first step in explaining the differences in Internet connectivity
among OECD countries. After examining the impact of economic
indicators, human capital, institutional legal environment, and
existing technological infrastructure, the empirical analyses show
that economic wealth and telecommunications policy are the
most salient predictors of a nations' Internet connectivity.
A01. Phone
Calls and Fax Machines: The Limits to Globalization
(with Hugh Louch and Miguel Angel Centeno)
1999. The Washington Quarterly. 22:2 83-100
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