Search results

More than any other form of online activity, the practices of online information search have been overwhelmingly associated with their straightforward utility and with the potential alterations in the socio-economic structure that the access to this information, or lack thereof, entails. However, even when afforded such an apparently instrumental role, several important elements of the Internet are based on, and oriented towards, culture, identity and collectivity, and relate to a symbolically un-fragmented system that remains largely unconscious. In this paper we appropriate the concept of ontological security to explore the autonomy of the cultural dimension of online search, which has gone largely unanalysed in the literature. Ontological security is the unconscious sense that individuals have about the continuity and order in events related to their lives. At the collective level, it relates to the stability of the symbolic structures of society, which are both inclusive and exclusionary. Through a series of qualitative and quantitative empirical exercises, we show that search engines (1) construct ontological meaning as much as they provide utility, (2) relate to unconscious individuation even more strongly than rational instrumentality and (3) help in dealing with existential questions about the informational chaos of reality generated during the realization of global events. Even in the seemingly individualistic information society, search brings a clearer sense of the position of the subject in relation to the collectivity.

La recerca va analitzar la interacció entre innovació tecnològica, canvi organitzatiu i transformació dels serveis públics i els processos polítics a l'Ajuntament de Barcelona. Prenent com a hipòtesi de partida l'aparició d'un possible model Barcelona II (que entenem que és paral·lel al model Barcelona, un exemple internacionalment reconegut de combinació de polítiques urbanes), es van estudiar les transformacions internes del consistori barceloní vinculades amb l'ús innovador de les tecnologies de la informació i la comunicació i es van relacionar amb el conjunt de canvis socials i polítics que interaccionaven amb aquest procés. ; La investigación analizó la interacción entre innovación tecnológica, cambio organizativo y transformación de los servicios públicos y los procesos políticos del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona. Tomando como hipótesis de partida la aparición de un posible modelo Barcelona II (que entendemos que es paralelo al modelo Barcelona, un ejemplo internacionalmente reconocido de combinación de políticas urbanas), se estudiaron las transformaciones internas del consistorio barcelonés vinculadas al uso de las tecnologías de la información y de la comunicación y se relacionaron con el conjunto de cambios sociales y políticos que interaccionaban en este proceso. ; The research analysed the interaction between technological innovation, organisational change and the transformation of public services and political processes at Barcelona City Council. Taking as its starting hypothesis the emergence of a possible Barcelona II model (ie, a parallel model to the Barcelona model, an internationally renowned combination of urban policies), the study looked at the internal transformations in Barcelona's City Council that were linked to innovative use of information and communication technologies, and linked them to the series of social and political changes interacting with this process.

The paper looks at a representative sample of Romanian Internet users, intending to differentiate between factors that are influencing the frequency of use. It describes the statistical setting of occasional users versus the group of regular Internet users that currently represent the main policy focus of the European Commission, synthesizing and analysing some of the findings. The authors then propose a general access equation looking at a large number of usual access factors. A logistic model is tested for similar sets of factors allowing comparison between impacts on the two mentioned groups of internet users. We found that the education level and the location of household may act as proxies for use mode selection and for communication intensity. However, factors not taken into account in these equations seem to be responsible for much more of the difference between the behaviours of the two groups of users, rather than usual access factors. These factors are related to motivations and the last and newest part of the paper is dedicated to the finding of the differentiated impact of utilitarian versus social motivations on the frequency of use. Our analysis, based on a descriptive type of model, reveals the important role that different types of uses play in the transition from occasional to intensive use, and that the main statistically significant differences between intensive and occasional users come from social motivations, out of which the uploading self-created content seems to be the most relevant. Policy makers could focus on the fusion of utilitarian and social motivations as a phenomenal driver of Internet diffusion, using the mix as a catalyser to bridge the important divides in both use and access that still reign in the Romanian information society. Keywords: Internet uses, e-inclusion, access model, Romania, utilitarian and social motivations. (Romanian Journal of European Affairs / SWP)

Digital Media Worlds tracks the evolution of the media sector on its way toward a digital world. It focuses on core economic and management issues (cost structures, value network chain, business models) in industries such as book publishing, broadcasting, film, music, newspaper and video game