Who is using new media?✅
The new media are beginning to overtake the traditional media as a means of mass communication. Internet use across Europe is now around 14 hours a week per person. In 2014, in the UK, around 84% of households had internet access.On average, over ½ of adults’ waking hours are spent using media and communication services. The traditional media, like newspapers and TV, have difficulty competing with the internet for advertising income, and advertisers now spend more on internet than traditional media advertising.
Stratification in the new media
Users of the new media are not a homogenous group, sharing the same social characteristics. As in most areas of social life, there is also stratification in cyberspace, with media users differentiated by social class, gender, age and location.
Jones suggests that patterns in internet access and use tend to reflect and amplify existing inequalities, with particular concern regarding some of the more vulnerable groups.
Dutton and Blank found 91% of those with higher education had used the internet, compared to 34% of those with no formal qualification.
Helsper showed that it is the healthy, young, well-educated people with higher incomes and professionals who had taken up broadband and were the most likely to be frequent internet users, while those with health problems, the elderly, those without educational qualifications, low-income earners and those in manual occupations were left behind
Social Class Inequalities
Broadly, the middle and upper classes are the biggest users of the new media, as they can more easily afford it.
Those in the poorest social classes have the least access to the internet and other new media at home, as they are less able to afford it, and 65% of those who are not online are in the bottom two social classes.
There is, then, evidence of a digital divide and a digital underclass (shown by Helsper).
Digital divide - the gap between those people with effective access to the digital and information technology making up the new media and those who lack such access.
Digital underclass - a group of people, mainly those from the lowest social classes, the least educated and the unemployed, who are increasingly disadvantaged in comparison to those who have full access to and use of the internet and other digital media.
Helsper found that even when they have managed to secure access, they often lack the confidence and skills to fully engage with the opportunities available online.
The internet is now such a normal part of life that those who lack internet access, or the skills and confidence to use it experience a form of social exclusion based on information and communication poverty which prevents them from participating in the normal activities of society.
Age differences
There is a substantial generation gap in access to and use of the new media.
This is not surprising since, as Boyle points out, younger people have grown up with the latest developments in the new media, have learnt to use the internet at home, at school and from their peers, and are consequently more media-savvy than previous generations.
They are, for example, more likely to consume media in a variety of formats, such as watching TV on their mobiles, laptops, and iPads and tablets, rather than just on a TV set, and those aged 16-24 are over 10x more likely to go online via a mobile than those aged 55+.
Young people have the highest levels of internet access and use, and this declines among older age groups.
However, there is also evidence of clear social inequality among young people.
Ofcom found young people (16-24), compared to older people: are greater internet users, spend more time online, are more likely to have the internet at home and own and use a smartphone, are more attached to, aware of and confidence in using new media technology etc.
Gender differences
There are some significant differences between men and women in the way they use and relate to the new media.
Ofcom found: fixed game consoles are more popular among males, but e-readers are more popular among women, men spend 3x as much time as women watching videos online, more females than males reported ‘high addiction’ to their phones, young women make significantly more calls than young men and also send and receive more texts.
Li and Kirkup, in a study of gender differences among Chinese and British students, suggested there are two global gender-based cultures with respect to the internet. They found that, although women are increasingly going online and the gender gap in internet users may be narrowing, actual behaviour once online, such as the websites visited and reasons for searching, are still gendered.
Men in both countries, compared to women, were: more likely to have positive attitudes towards the internet, spent more time online it and used it more extensively, more self-confidence about their computer skills than women and were more likely to express the opinion that using computers was a male activity, more likely to use email and played more computer games and were less likely to use the internet for studying.
They found that British women students still regard the internet more as a tool rather than as the toy for personal fun and pleasure that men do.
Location, and the global digital divide
The more significant digital divide in terms of location is that between the information-rich and the information-poor countries, and the existence of a global digital underclass.
The new media, and particularly the internet, are used most heavily and by the largest proportion of people in the western world.
Many of those living in the world’s poorest countries lack access du to poverty. The poorest countries lack the resources to build the digital networks required, and private businesses won’t provide them as there aren’t enough customers willing o able to pay enough for them to make a profit.
Language and cultural barriers can also be a problem, as about 85% of websites are in English, and most web content is generated in the USA and Western Europe.
This creates global inequalities, and a new digital underclass who are excluded from the new media.