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- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Digitalisering och social exklusion : Om medborgares användning av och attityder till Arbetsförmedlingens digitala tjänster
- 2008
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This research report focuses on the users of e-government in a social science perspective. Our aim is to study how different social groups, registered at the Swedish Public Employment Service, relate to the internet, the agency and the services offered on its website (www.ams.se). The field of e-government research is dominated by studies that centre attention on the supply side (videlicet research investigating the entrance of IT in organizations and the implications that new technology have to these), while usercentred research (demand side) is still scarce. Our study, focusing on how citizens relate to the internet in general and e-government in particular, therefore helps to bridge a knowledge gap within the field. Our survey is based on a questionnaire sent to 2 000 randomly selected persons, all registered at the Swedish Public Employment Service. Of these, 762 job seekers responded, which gives us a frequency rate of 40 percent. The questions asked were related to the job seekers’ usage of and attitudes towards the internet in general and the agency’s webpage in particular, but also to their attitudes to the Swedish Public Employment Service. The main results show that social factors, particularly education, play a major role for the job seekers’ ability to use the web based services offered by the agency. People with a lower educational level are less inclined to use the agency’s website, and at the same time they experience the site as more complicated to use. We also found a strong link between the relations to the internet (access, usage, experience and attitudes) and the relations to the agency’s website. Those with advantaged internet relations – mostly well educated people, white collars and people living in bigger cities – also use the agency’s website more diligently and tend to have more positive attitudes towards it (and vice versa). Thus, its necessary to talk in terms of digitally well equipped and less well equipped groups. The unequal relations to the internet in general and the agency’s website in particular not only indicate that e-government is more suitable for the digitally well equipped, but that it in fact exclude those with less digital resources. This new kind of exclusion has great implications for the job seekers’ possibilities to enter the labour market, and to act their role as citizens. If e government also means a reformation of the citizen role – in the sense of increased individual responsibility towards the government - not bridging the digital divide will carry even more exclusion to those that’s already excluded.
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| 2. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, et al.
(författare)
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Emerging Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion in the Era of E-government : A Study of Users of ‘Swedish Public Employment Service’ on the Internet
- 2008
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Ingår i: Media and Global Divides. - Stockholm : Organizing Committee for the IAMCR Congress 2008. - 918835430X ; , s. 44-45
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the area of governmental information for and services to citizens digitalization has certainly become a buzzword. Framed within the discourses on e-government or e-governance – or different mixtures of the two – various analyses have tried to point out, or even anticipate possible consequences of the appropriation of digital technologies, mainly the internet, in governmental services.On the one hand, these analyses have pointed out a great deal of opportunities connected to the incorporation of the internet into governmental information and services. Policy makers have been quick to point to the increased accessibility as a great opportunity for the citizens; in Sweden this vision of accessibility has even been referred to as ‘24:7-governmental agencies’. Academics, among others, have also suggested that the digitalization of information and services opens up new possibilities for citizen control of governments.On the other hand, a number of problems have also been identified. For instance, the digitalization of public registers holding personal information has been interpreted as a threat to the citizens’ integrity: Will digitalization bring a new surveillance society? The most frequently debated problem, however, at least within research, has been the fear of digital divides. Will the internet create digital cleavages between different groups of citizens?So far, however, neither the hopeful nor the dystopian analyses have made enough efforts to critically evaluate their claims. Such evaluations can start from different points of departure, and in this paper the starting point is the citizens as users of governmental information and services through the internet: What patterns of inclusion and exclusion emerge as a governmental agency digitalizes its information and services by making them increasingly internet based?The paper presents statistical data from a survey of 762 unemployed citizens using the Swedish Public Employment Service, a governmental agency that has come to rely specifically heavy on internet based information and service. The initial analysis of data reveals interesting differences between social groups in terms of both perception and use of the internet – in general – and the resources offered by SPES in particular. For instance, the users’ various degrees of education is a strong, determining factor when it comes to use of internet SPES’ services.The paper starts from a conceptual elaboration of various notions of e-government and e-governance. Thereafter, the survey data is described and elaborated on before moving into a discussion of the wider significance of the findings: What does data suggest in terms of patterns of inclusion in and exclusion from a society in which governmental agencies, to an increasing extent, use the internet for their information and services?
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| 3. |
- Abalo, Ernesto, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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Olika publiker, olika livsstilar : Om idrott, kultur och regional utveckling
- 2008
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- I föreliggande rapport studeras vilka sociala värden som elitidrotten och kulturen genererar för invånarna i landsortspräglade län som Blekinge, Halland, Kalmar och Kronoberg. Studien syftar till att lämna ett bidrag till den samhällsvetenskapliga idrottsforskningen, och ge ökad kunskap om idrottens och kulturens betydelse för den regionala utvecklingen. Studiens material vilar på en postenkät skickad till 1500 slumpmässigt utvalda personer i respektive län. Det sammanlagda antalet besvarade enkäter uppgick till 3181 stycken, vilket ger en nettosvarsfrekvens på 54 procent. Rapporten visar bland annat att både idrott och kultur värderas relativt högt och konsumeras i relativt stor utsträckning. Beträffande idrott konsumeras främst breddidrottsliga evenemang, och vad gäller kultur besöks bibliotek och biografer oftare än exempelvis teatrar. Studien visar också att de kultur- respektive idrottsintresserade skiljer sig åt vad gäller demografi, men även vad gäller livsstil. De idrottsintresserade har en mer folklig och lantlig prägel, medan de kulturintresserade är att betrakta som en välutbildad kosmopolitisk grupp. Med tanke på de sistnämndas ökade rörlighet är satsningar på kultur ej att förringa. Denna typ av satsningar kan få denna resursstarka grupp att dels stanna kvar i landsorten, dels flytta in till densamma.
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