Leader of the postdoctoral project is a guest editor of the special issue of the SCI journal The Information Society, one of the leading globally recognised journals in the filed of Internet studies. The coauthor of introduction to the special issue is Prof. L. Fortunati, one of the leading scholars in the field of studying social and digital inequalities and in the field of power and empowerment related to ICTs. This special issue focuses on empowerment and new media. The articles in this special issue, which advance innovative theoretical and methodological frameworks, focus on the theoretical grounding of the notion of empowerment; empirical research on structures and processes that shape the emergence of individual and collective empowerment within online communities; the value of Amartya Sen’s capability approach for community informatics research; and development of a methodological framework for measuring and monitoring the dynamics of digital inequalities correctly. Estimated publication dates of the special issue are 21 Apr 2014 (online) and 8 May 2014 (print).
The leader of the postdoctoral project is the first and leading author of the SCI paper published within the special issue presented above. The paper indicates that accurate insight into the emergence of information societies is essential not only for understanding the social effects of information and communication technologies, but also for empowering stakeholders to promptly and appropriately respond to the challenges they encounter. One much-discussed challenge that is particularly in need of analytical clarity is the digital divide, which is difficult to empirically elaborate, given its complicated nature. It is prone to superficial interpretations that suit particular agendas. To address this problem, this article proposes a methodology that integrates and upgrades the analysis of absolute change, relative change, and time distance into a general multidimensional approach. With this methodology, target audiences have an intuitively persuasive and methodologically sound instrument that could reinforce trust in digital divide studies. The approach is applied in evaluating the Internet penetration gap between Slovenia and Denmark, which often serves as a benchmark for policymaking in Slovenia. Estimated publication dates of the special issue are 21 Apr 2014 (online) and 8 May 2014 (print).
In contemporary society, a growing demand for the accessibility of social indicators can be observed. This requires increased attention to their construction to avoid misleading interpretations, which can be the result of inadequate knowledge, or can even be an intentional choice to imply a specific desired outcome. This SCI paper addresses this issue by first summarizing research regarding the perception of numbers,statistical thinking, and numerical literacy. The focus is then narrowed to the comparison of social indicators observed for two units in a time perspective. Three simple and popular measures of dynamics most frequently used when social change is analyzed and interpreted are addressed: absolute difference, relative difference, and time distance. In a corresponding experiment, respondents evaluated the direction of change of a certain social indicator in time (i.e., whether the differences increase, decrease, or stagnate) for a hypothetical case where the three measures implied contradictory interpretations.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32474205
In this SCI paper sense of community is (based on a mixed method design) analyzed in two very different types of neighborhoods in Ljubljana, Slovenia: a large housing estate and a middle-class neighborhood of individual houses. Sense of community was shown to be comprised of three factors: (1) contact with neighbors; (2) social control; and (3) attachment. The analysis showed that values significantly increase the modelʼs explanatory power and that the two neighborhoods differ significantly in terms of which variables are important for sense of community, therefore indicating that this could be highly context-dependent.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30824029
When systematising some of the methodological challenges faced in measuring digital inequalities, this chapter discusses issues in two areas. The first area is related to variations and changes in the definition of what counts as internet usage together with how the indicators are operationalised. The second involves comparing results arising from the three different statistical measures that can be used when interpreting the dynamics of the digital divide.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30244189