Section: Editorial
Like earlier periods witnessing the rise of radio and then television, the birth of the Internet era has generated extensive speculation about the potential consequences of this development for older news media, for political campaigns, and for civic society. As the Internet has taken off, as discussed elsewhere in this issue, new studies have explored the consequences for American parties, candidates, and election campaigns; for new social movements, interest groups, and organizational activism; and for the policy-making process and governing in an information age (see, for example, Davis and Owen 1998; Hill and Hughes 1998; Davis 1999; Kamarck and Nye 1999; Gibson and Ward 1998; Margolis et al. 1997 and 1999; Norris and Jones 1998; Toulouse and Luke 1998). Despite the growing literature, it remains unclear whether we can generalize more widely from Net activism within America to understand the online community in other postindustrial societies.
In particular, as the emergent Internet age develops, is new technology closing the gap between rich and poor societies, allowing some innovative and flexible economies to leapfrog the manufacturing stage in industrial development? Mobilization theories suggest that the new technology may prove critical to the economic development of developing societies like Malaysia and India, facilitating the move from a semiagricultural economy to a service economy, as in Singapore. For example, Bill Gates claims that the information society may reduce global inequalities between rich and poor nations (1995).
On the other hand, reinforcement theories suggest that the differential diffusion of new technology in different regions and states may mean that the world is experiencing the development of a new north-south divide. International inequalities may be exacerbated in a situation when most of the world's population lacks basic access to a telephone, let alone a computer (see UNESCO 1998:88-95). The gains in productivity produced by the new technology may widen differences in economic growth between the most affluent societies and those that lack resources to invest in the information society (De Bens and Mazzolini 1998; Golding 1996; Mowlana 1997:104).
The literature suggests a series of simple propositions that we can test. At the societal level, if the reinforcement thesis is correct, we would expect to find that existing differences between information-rich and -poor nations would be exacerbated by the growth of the Internet. As in the adage, "To them that hath...," the most affluent and advanced postindustrial economies can be expected to have the investment in skills, technology, and infrastructure that could allow them to become leading players in the global information society, while poorer states could lag farther behind. Far from promoting greater equality between nations, the Net could allow more advanced economies to pull farther ahead.
At the individual level, based on what we know about the characteristics of the on-line community in the United States, we would expect to find that Net users in Europe would be drawn disproportionately from the more affluent and well-educated sectors of society, from the male population, from younger generations, and from those most attentive to the traditional news media (Davis and Owen 1998; Hill and Hughes 1998; Norris 1999). In these respects, except for age, the on-line community reflects the socioeconomic biases that are common in conventional forms of political participation (Verba et al. 1995). Lastly, the U.S. literature suggests that we would also expect to find that the on-line community in Europe would include those already most engaged with, and knowledgeable about, public affairs. With the important exception of age, if the social profile of Net users is similar to those who are already most likely to participate politically, the Internet may serve to reinforce existing social biases in civic engagement.
These propositions can be analyzed by examining the evolution of the online community since the mid-1990s in postindustrial societies, comparing eighteen nations in Western Europe with the United States. This universe allows us to compare all member states of the European Union (EU), all established democracies sharing relatively similar levels of literacy, education, and affluence, although with long-standing differences in patterns of use of the traditional news media like newspapers and television (Norris 2000). The European analysis is based on successive Eurobarometer surveys monitoring Net users from spring 1996 to the latest surveys in spring 1999.(n1) The results are compared with surveys of on-line users in America conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press during the same period.(n2) Throughout the study, Net user is defined as someone who reports having access to, or using, the Internet or the World Wide Web.
The Evolution of the Information Society
The on-line community represents one part of the broader phenomenon of the "information society." The first issue to address is whether new communication technologies have spread evenly throughout Western Europe or whether major cross-national disparities have emerged between the electronically rich and poor societies. Mobilization theories are certainly right to stress the dramatic explosion of use of the information society as the defining feature of late-twentieth-century communications, but the pattern across postindustrial nations, even within the EU, has proved highly uneven so far. The "information society" encompasses access to a wide range of mediated and interpersonal communication technologies. These are computer-related (including access to a computer, CD-ROM, modem, and the Internet), television-related (such as cable and satellite television, decoders for paid television programs, teletext news services on television, and VCRs), and telephone-related (such as minitel, other videotext services without TV, and fax machines).
European trends from the mid to late 1990s in Table 1 show that of all the communication technologies, the growth in computer-related formats has easily outstripped the growth of other systems. During just four years, the percentage of Europeans with access to a computer rose from 31 percent in spring 1996 to 40 percent in spring 1999. Even more dramatically, during the same period, the percentage of European Internet users quadrupled from 5 to 20 percent, a dramatic increase in just a few years. In the late 1990s, the Internet moved from margin to mainstream in Europe, reaching more people than many traditional media outlets. In addition, there was a related surge in those with access to a CD-ROM or a modem connection. In contrast, during the same years, demand remained largely flat for the use of television-related technology like VCRs, satellite TV, and decoders for paid TV; only access to televisions with teletext news increased, in large part because this feature became fairly standard among TV manufacturers. About two-thirds of all television households in Europe now have access to a VCR and to teletext, and half have cable or satellite TV, a lower percentage than in the United States (see Table 1). The purely telephone-related technologies also stayed fairly stable (with the exception of the omnipresent jangling mobile phone, not shown here); the use of older minitel systems, largely confined to France, declined during this period.
The overall surge in the Internet, however, disguises major contrasts between European states that reflect deep-rooted differences in the spread of the information society. (For a more detailed discussion, see Norris 2000.) In spring 1996, only one in twenty Europeans went on-line, and even in Sweden, the figure only reached one in ten (Table 2). By spring 1999, the numbers had risen modestly in Portugal, Greece, and Spain, but in sharp contrast, Net use had rocketed in Scandinavia and the Netherlands and had grown significantly in many other countries. By March and April 1999, the pattern shows by far the highest levels of Net users in Northern Europe, where 39 percent are on-line, in contrast to the lowest penetration in Southern Europe, where only 8 percent are on-line.
Strict comparisons between the United States and Europe are difficult because measurements differ and alternative estimates about the percentage of Internet users, often varying substantially, are regularly published.(n3) The regular Pew surveys of on-line users suggest that access to the Internet in the United States has more than doubled during the last four years; in spring 1999, almost half of the adult population in America (49 percent) had access to the Internet. This level of penetration is relatively high, again making the United States something of an outlier among postindustrial societies, although the penetration of the Net was even higher in Sweden, where almost two-thirds (61 percent) of the adult population are Net users.
If these estimates are confirmed in other surveys, the revolution in Internet use transforming Swedish society in just a few years is remarkable. Denmark and Finland are also relatively wired societies. Slightly farther down the rankings, from one-fifth to one-third of the public have access in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Britain, and Northern Ireland. The lowest levels of Internet penetration are in Spain, Greece, and Portugal, in that order. Patterns of Net users are closely correlated, not surprisingly, with levels of access to computers. Again, Sweden leads the way in computer users, followed by Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands. However, affluent Germany and France remain low on both indicators, and Greece and Portugal are the least wired to the information society.
These cross-national differences are open to many explanations, discussed more fully elsewhere (Norris 2000; UNESCO 1998).Without going fully into the possible reasons here, we can note that levels of Internet use in different countries may reflect broader patterns of socioeconomic development, as indicated by the level of per capita gross national product, the size of the service sector, and the spread of higher education and literacy. Societies with a large white-collar service sector can be expected to facilitate Internet access in the workplace, and those who have gone through higher education are likely to have acquired computing skills. Participation in the Internet requires telephone or broadband cable facilities, computer and software skills, literacy, and a certain standard of living. When Europeans were asked in the Eurobarometer why they were not interested in participating in certain services over the Internet, cost proved a major factor. Yet on further examination, the level of economic development of a country can provide only a partial explanation of the European patterns we have observed. After all, low access to the Internet in Greece and Portugal cannot simply be blamed on the education skills of the workforce or on the size of the service sector, since Austria, France, and Germany also have few Net users.
Cultural and linguistic factors may also provide part of the explanation. Surveys of Web sites indicate that the Net remains an overwhelmingly English-language dominated medium (UNESCO 1998:95). We would thus expect the level of Internet use to reflect a society's familiarity with English as the primary or secondary language. This could help explain the size of the on-line community in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Britain, and Ireland compared with Germany or France.
Lastly, technological developments, government policies, and private-sector initiatives within each country structure the opportunities for Internet use and access. These factors include investments in scientific research, programs to facilitate Internet connections via public libraries and schools, computer training in schools, further and higher education, and communications policies regulating telephone charges, cross-media ownership, and on-line server companies.
Without doing more than speculating about potential explanations, the comparison indicates that at present the information society has not spread evenly throughout postindustrial economies. Instead, there are major differences between leaders and laggards even within the European Union. Far from equalizing the playing field between European societies, the adoption of new technology has so far exacerbated a north-south divide that already existed in traditional patterns of mass media use.
The Characteristics of the On-Line Community
Moving to the individual level, is there evidence that, as in the United States, the on-line community in Europe is disproportionately concentrated among the more affluent and well-educated strata, men, and the younger generation?
Table 3 compares European Internet users in spring 1996 and spring 1999 in terms of their social background and use of traditional news media. For multivariate analysis, these variables were entered into a logistic regression model, shown in Table 4, along with each nation (coded as dummy variables), to examine the effects of societal-level variations already observed. The pattern shows that the familiar social biases in the on-line community that are widely observed in the United States are also present in Western Europe.
In spring 1999, age proved to be one of the strongest predictors of who surfs the Net in Europe, with nearly one-third of the youngest generation (fifteen to twenty-five years old) going on-line, compared with only 3 percent of the oldest generation (over sixty-five years). As many have observed, this provides some of the strongest evidence that the Net may radically transform established patterns of mass communications through the gradual process of generational replacement. The education gap also proved substantial; only 5 percent of those who left school at or before age fifteen went on-line, compared with one-third of those with some higher education. The income gap was also marked, with Net users disproportionately concentrated among the more affluent. The pattern by occupational status was clearly defined, with 44 percent of managers on-line, compared with 15 percent of manual workers and only 10 percent of the unemployed. Lastly, there was a modest gender gap of 5 points, with women slightly less likely to go on-line despite their predominance in the keyboard occupations, but this gap was far less than the disparities by age, income, and education. In terms of use of the traditional news media, as in the United States, European on-line users were more likely than average to read a newspaper and to listen to radio news, although there was no significant relationship with TV news.
The multivariate analysis in Table 4 confirms that all of these variables proved significant. After controlling for individual-level social background and media use, the societal-level variations we have already observed remained significant. This suggests that the pattern we have already observed in the higher use of the Net in Scandinavia is not just a product of the educational and occupational background of the population in these countries but does reflect broader societal patterns of access. That is, a Portuguese white-collar graduate would still be less likely to be on-line than his or her Swedish equivalent.
If we compare the changes as use of the Internet expanded from the mid to late 1990s, it is apparent that the social division between Net users and nonusers has widened. The groups who have flocked most readily to the Net are the young, the most affluent, and the well educated; other groups registered far more modest increases. For example, the percentage of managers on-line shot up by 30 percent, twice the average rate of increase. It may be that the profile of on-line users flattens again in a few years if use spreads more widely throughout society--for example, if the price of equipment and access drops, as seems likely--but during the emerging Internet period it is the younger generation with the educational skills and financial resources to get on-line who have taken most advantage of the opportunities on the Internet. The gap between the information-rich and -poor has widened substantially, at both individual and societal levels, in the emergent Internet era.
Conclusions: A Growing North-South Divide
Many exaggerated hopes and fears surround virtual democracy in the emerging Internet age. Internet research is sometimes in as much danger of "irrational exuberance" as the Nasdaq index. The emerging consensus in the U.S. literature about Net users seems to favor the reinforcement view: In the early stages of the Internet age, the on-line community in the United States is drawn from the more affluent and better-educated social strata, and Net activists share many of the characteristics of conventional activists (Davis and Owen 1998; Hill and Hughes 1998; Norris 1999). If so, the new medium may merely reproduce divisions between the information-rich and the information-poor.
The findings in this study confirm that the familiar social biases observed among American users in the early years of Internet expansion are also evident in Western Europe, notably the appeal of the Net for the more affluent and better educated. The mobilization of the younger generation in the on-line community provides some counterevidence to this argument, since these are the people who are least involved in many traditional forms of political activism, such as voting, and who are also least likely to watch television news. In the longer term, this may provide some grounds for the mobilization thesis.
At the societal level, the north-south divide in the information society is marked and seems likely to reinforce existing cross-national differences in use of the print and electronic news media. The European nations that have moved most rapidly toward the Internet tend to be those that are already heavy consumers of the printed press, and the Mediterranean region, which is slowest to move on-line, is characterized as having a television-centric mass media.
These conclusions need an important qualification. Given the rapid pace of change, today's snapshot of the on-line community may well differ substantially from the typical profile of users within the space of just a few years. It may be that the disparities we have observed will eventually diminish as experience of the Net becomes more ubiquitous and gradually "normalizes" among the general public. After all, studies of the television audience clustered around the flickering black-and-white cabinets in the early 1950s show a very different profile compared with typical users a decade later (Norris 2000). After all, the Internet age remains in its adolescence: The first packet-switching network appeared in the United Kingdom in 1968, and UCLA launched Arpanet the following year, but it was only in 1992 that the World Wide Web was born, with an explosion of use and the launch of Mosaic and Netscape in 1993-94 (UNESCO 1998:50-51).
Mobilization theorists could well argue that it will take more than a few years for the Net to level the playing field and transform existing social inequalities, and the profile of users could well change over time. Just as the early, more affluent television audience in the 1950s had moved mainstream by the 1960s in a process of "normalization," so the massive surge in Web access, and the fall in costs, means that early users may well prove atypical of later ones. Whether, like television, the Internet has the capacity to gradually equalize societal inequalities in later stages of development, as access gradually ripples out to broader groups and there is a "ceiling" effect, with almost universal penetration in the more advanced societies, remains an open question at this stage.
Notes
An earlier version of this editorial was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, Sept. 1999.
(n1.) The data come from successive Eurobarometer surveys conducted among representative samples of the European public in the fifteen European Union member states: EB44. 2bis (N.65, 178) in spring 1996; EB47.0 (N. 16, 352) in spring 1997; EB50.1 (N. 16,201) in fall 1998; and EB51.0 (N. 16, 179) in spring 1999. I am most grateful to DG X.A2 Public Opinion at the European Opinion, in particular to Anna Melich, for access to the Eurobarometer and to the ICPSR, the Data Archive at Harvard University, and especially to the Zentralarchiv fur Empirische Sozialforschung an der Universitat zu Koln for their great assistance in locating the most recent data sets. For all information about Eurobarometer questionnaires, data sets, published reports, and technical fieldwork details, see http://www.europa.eu.int.
(n2.) I am most grateful to Andrew Kohut and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press for their generous release of the survey data on on-line users. The Pew surveys used in this editorial are those of on-line users in 1995, 1996, and 1998; the May 1998 survey of the public's media consumption; and the November 1998 election surveys. Trends on Net users are updated by the June 1999 Pew survey. For all information about Pew questionnaires, data sets, published reports, and technical fieldwork details, see http://www.people-press.org/.
(n3.) See, for example, http://www.nua.ie/.
Legend for Chart: A - Media B - Percentage with Access/Use 1996 C - Percentage with Access/Use 1997 D - Percentage with Access/Use 1998 E - Percentage with Access/Use 1999 F - Increase (1996-99) A B C D E F COMPUTER-RELATED Computer 31 30 35 40 +9 CD-ROM 13 16 25 26 +13 Modem 8 8 12 23 +15 Internet connection 5 6 12 20 +15 TELEVISION-RELATED VCR 72 73 74 73 +1 Teletext on TV 50 52 59 60 +10 Satellite TV 17 18 18 20 +3 Decoder for pay TV 10 11 11 10 0 TELEPHONE-RELATED Fax machine 19 N/A N/A 19 0 Minitel or videotex system 5 5 3 3 -2 Sources: Eurobarometers 44.2, spring 1996; 47.0, spring 1997; 50.1, fall 1998; 51.0, spring 1999. Note: The Eurobarometer question asks, "Do you have access to, or do you use, . . ." N/A = not available.
Legend for Chart: B - Spring 1996 C - Spring 1997 D - Fall 1998 E - Spring 1999 F - Increase (1996-99) A B C D E F Sweden 12 26 43 61 +49 United States[a] 21 36 42 49 +28 Denmark 10 17 26 44 +34 Finland 11 16 18 39 +28 Netherlands 9 16 19 32 +23 Luxembourg 5 13 16 22 +17 Britain 9 10 11 22 +13 Northern Ireland 4 8 10 20 +16 Italy 3 5 7 14 +11 Ireland 4 5 9 14 +10 Austria 4 10 7 11 +7 Belgium 3 6 8 11 +8 France 2 4 4 9 +7 Germany, West 5 8 8 8 +3 Germany, East 2 4 5 8 +6 Spain 2 2 5 8 +6 Greece 1 3 3 7 +6 Portugal 2 2 3 5 +3 EU-15 5 9 12 20 +15 Sources: Eurobarometers 44.2, spring 1996; 47.0, spring 1997; 50.1, fall 1998; 51.0, spring 1999. Note: The Eurobarometer question asks, "Do you have access to, or do you use, the Internet or World Wide Web?" The Pew survey asks, "Do you ever go on-line to access the Internet or World Wide Web or to send and receive e-mail?" [a] Successive surveys by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. See www. peoplepress.org.
Legend for Chart: B - Percentage On-Line, Spring 1996 C - Percentage On-Line, Spring 1999 D - Change A B C D ALL EU-15 COUNTRIES AGE 5 20 +15 15-25 9 32 +23 26-44 7 24 +17 45-64 5 16 +11 65+ 1 3 +2 HOUSEHOLD INCOME CATEGORY -- 4 14 +10 - 3 14 +11 + 5 22 +17 ++ 10 37 +27 AGE FINISHED EDUCATION Up to 15 1 5 +4 16-19 years 4 15 +11 20+ 9 33 +24 GENDER Men 6 22 +16 Women 4 17 +13 OCCUPATIONAL STATUS Managers 14 44 +30 Other white collar 8 29 +21 Manual worker 3 15 +12 Homemaker 2 8 +6 Unemployed 3 10 +7 Student 13 44 +31 READ DAILY NEWSPAPER Never 2 12 +10 Sometimes 5 21 +16 Every day 6 23 +17 WATCH TV NEWS Never 5 20 +15 Sometimes 6 22 +16 Every day 5 19 +14 LISTEN TO RADIO NEWS Never 4 16 +12 Sometimes 5 19 4-14 Every day 6 22 +16 Sources: Eurobarometers 44.2, spring 1996; 47.0, spring 1997; 50.1, fall 1998; 51.0, spring 1999.
Legend for Chart: B - Using Internet (R) C - Significance D - B E - Operationalization A B C D E DEMOGRAPHICS Age -.168 .000 -.642 In years Education .153 .000 .609 Age finished full-time education Income .141 .000 .439 Harmonized house- hold income scale Class .077 .000 .574 Manual(0), Nonmanual Head of Household Gender .052 .000 .327 Male (1), Female(0) USE OF MEDIA Newspaper .044 .000 .139 5-point scale Radio News .031 .315 .092 5-point scale TV News .000 .315 -.031 5-point scale NATION Greece -.073 .000 -1.72 0/1 Germany -.067 .000 -1.30 0/1 France -.057 .000 -1.24 0/1 Spain -.055 .000 -1.36 0/1 Portugal -.054 .000 -1.44 0/1 Belgium -.052 .000 -1.20 0/1 Austria -.041 .000 -.93 0/1 Italy -.036 .000 -.91 0/1 Ireland -.029 .000 -.73 0/1 United Kingdom .000 .432 .23 0/1 Netherlands .021 .000 .45 0/1 Finland .035 .000 .65 0/1 Denmark .049 .000 .89 0/1 Sweden .099 .000 1.77 0/1 Cox-Snell R[sup 2] .278 Nagelkerke R[sup 2] .431 Percentage Correct 83.8 Source: Eurobarometer 51.0, spring 1999. Notes: The table reports the coefficients predicting use of the Internet based on logistic regression models. Use of the Internet is measured as a dichotomy where 1-yes, 0 = no. Luxembourg, which is close to the European mean, is excluded from the national dummies.
GRAPH: Figure 1 Online Community, EU-15
GRAPH: Figure 2 % of Internet Users, EU and US 1996-1999
References
Davis, Richard. 1999. The Web of Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Davis, Richard, and Diana Owen. 1998. New Media and American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.
De Bens, Els, and Gianpietro Mazzolini. 1998. "The Media in the Age of Digital Communication." In Media Policy: Convergence, Concentration, and Commerce, ed. Denis McQuail and Karen Siune. London: Sage.
Gates, Bill. 1995. The Road Ahead. New York: Viking.
Gibson, Rachel K., and Stephen J. Ward. 1998. "U.K. Political Parties and the Internet: `Politics as Usual' in the New Media?" Press/Politics 3(3): 14-38.
Golding, Peter. 1996. "World Wide Wedge: Division and Contradiction in the Global Information Infrastructure." Monthly Review 48 (3): 70-85.
Hill, Kevin A., and John E. Hughes. 1998. Cyberpolitics: Citizen Activism in the Age of the Internet. Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield.
Kamarck, Elaine Ciulla, and Joseph S. Nye Jr. 1999. Democracy. corn? Governance in a Networked World. Hollis, NH: Hollis Publishing.
Margolis, Michael, David Resnick, and Chin-Chang Tu. 1997. "Campaigning on the Internet: Parties and Candidates on the World Wide Web in the 1996 Primary Season." Press/Politics 2(1):59-78.
Margolis, Michael, David Resnick, and Joel D. Wolfe. 1999. "Party Competition on the Internet in the United States and Britain." Press/Politics 4(4):24-47.
Mowlana, Hamid. 1997. Global Information and World Communication. 2nd Edition. London: Sage.
Norris, Pippa. 1999. "Who Surfs? New Technology, Old Voters, and Virtual Democracy." In Democracy.com? Governance in a Networked World, ed. Elaine Ciulla Kamarck and Joseph S. Nye Jr. Hollis, NH: Hollis Publishing. Also available on-line at http:// www.ksg.harvard.edu/people/pnorris/papers.
Norris, Pippa. 2000. A Virtuous Circle: Political Communication in Post-Industrial Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press. Forthcoming.
Norris, Pippa, and David Jones. 1998. "Virtual Democracy." Press/Politics 3(2): 1-4.
Toulouse, Chris, and Timothy W. Luke, eds. 1998. The Politics of Cyberspace: A New Political Science Reader. New York: Routledge.
UNESCO. 1998. World Communication Report: The Media and Challenges of the New Technologies. Paris: UNESCO.
Verba, Sidney, Kay Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady. 1995. Voice and Equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
~~~~~~~~
By Pippa Norris