José Manuel Robles

Digital skills as a conditioning factor for digital political participation

Abstract While all forms of Internet activity have an impact on the lives of Internet users, some are particularly beneficial and allow people to improve their daily lives. One of such Internet use is Digital Political Participation (DDP). In this paper we seek to understand how the influence of digital skills on the adoption of Digital Political Participation practices may form the basis of a second level of digital divide and of a set of political inequalities. We operationalize the digital skills construct in terms of users’ Internet competence and level of appropriation. We hypothesize that digital skills have a significant influence on the adoption of beneficial uses of the Internet, such as DPP. At the same time, we examine whether digital skill levels are stratified by socio-demographic background, thereby generating political and social inequality. By looking at the Spanish case, we first tested the adequateness of the items chosen to measure these two dimensions. Second, we looked into sequences of multiple influences between socio-demographic variables and digital skills and between digital skills and DPP. The results show that socio demographic variables have an influence on digital skills. At the same time, digital skills have a strong influence on DPP.

Inequalities in the Information and Knowledge Society: From the Digital Divide to Digital Inequality

In this chapter, we analyse the development of two key concepts that have attracted the attention of a great number of Information and Knowledge Society specialists: the Digital Divide and Digital Inequality. Both concepts refer to the inequalities resulting from the development of the Internet in contemporary societies. However, the former focuses on the citizens that use and do not use this medium, whereas the latter studies the inequalities resulting from the different uses of the Internet. Taking Spain as a case study, this chapter examines to what extent the Digital Divide has reduced, by means of a time series analysis, and, on the other hand, looks at a type of advanced Internet use, e-shopping, to analyse whether digital inequalities have reduced or not from 2004 to 2011. We use the concepts of normalisation and stratification to order the information resulting from our analysis and to predict the development of inequality in the Information and Knowledge Society.

LA INFLUENCIA DE LAS HABILIDADES DIGITALES PARA LA BÚSQUEDA DE INFORMACIÓN COMERCIAL ON-LINE SOBRE EL E-SHOPPING: CUANDO LAS DESIGUALDADES DIGITALES AFECTAN A LOS NEGOCIOS

ABSTRACTFollowing Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), we study how abilities for searching and verifying commercial information online affect the adoption of e-shopping behaviors by internet users. Secondly, we study how these kinds of skills are positively influenced by the adoption of informative Internet uses. Finally, we reflect about the implications that digital inequality, i.e. the unequal distribution of beneficial uses of the Internet among the population, as informative ones are, can have on electronic commerce.