The author of the article highlights the importance of online communities for the web presence of businesses and organizations in the broader sense. According to the results of research WebSM, availability of user-friendly tools for online surveys have greatly increased, at first glance it seems that companies are using such online survey to explore these communities. The author of the article states what methodological errors arising thereunder and also affect the bias results. The article stresses that researce of online consumer communities, despite the rapid development of online survey methodology, continues to be facing a significant research and practical challenges at the same time such communities represent a new research opportunities for both, marketing analytics and managers as well as scientific researchers.
F.35 Other
COBISS.SI-ID: 32434013The digital divide research has recently documented a set of new practices related to people’s internet use that put the binary division between internet users and non-users under question. Especially, among the elderly population a considerably large group of proxy internet users has been identified who do not use the internet by themselves, but rather ask members of their personal networks to do things online for them. As proxy internet users rely mainly on their children and/or grandchildren, who play the role of warm experts, this paper suggests that the notion of intergenerational solidarity might be a sound conceptual basis to understand the under-researched relationship between social support and digital inequality. On the empirical level, this paper explores how the availability and lack of different types of social networks and their characteristics is associated with proxy use and non-use of internet. The results of multivariate analysis on survey data from a nation-wide representative sample show that between emotional and socializing support only the latter is associated with proxy internet use: internet non-users with larger socializing networks and stronger intergenerational support (e.g., a higher proportion of (grand)children) are more likely to be proxy internet users. Findings also indicate that younger internet non-users with higher education and children are more inclined to be proxy internet users.
B.03 Paper at an international scientific conference
COBISS.SI-ID: 32264029