Peran Negara dalam Mengurangi Ketimpangan Digital: Studi Kasus Afrika Selatan

Tulisan ini ini membahas mengenai ketimpangan digital yang terjadi di negara Afrika Selatan sebagai negara dengan tingkat ketimpangan terendah diantara negara-negara kawasannya. Tulisan ini dibuat untuk melihat apa saja peran negara yang menyebabkan angka ketimpangan digital di negara Afrika Selatan tidak begitu tinggi. Penulis menggunakan konsep digital divide guna memahami kondisi ketimpangan digital yang terjadi di Afrika Selatan. Sementara itu dalam penulis juga menggunakan konsep developmental state untuk menganalisis peran negara dalam mengatasi ketimpangan menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan dokumen-dokumen kebijakan sebagai sumber data. Meskipun peristiwa historis masa lampau masih dirasa kuat oleh masyarakat negara Afrika Selatan, namun tidak menjadi penghambat bagi kemajuan Afrika Selatan. Dalam mencapai posisinya saat ini, negara Afrika Selatan telah berupaya membuat kebijakan-kebijakan untuk mendukung peningkatan penetrasi digital dalam rangka mengurangi ketimpangan di negaranya. Negara berperan dalam mendorong pembangunan infrastruktur, pendidikan, serta membangun kerjasama dengan aktor lainnya seperti sektor privat, institusi pendidikan, hingga organisasi internasional guna mengatasi ketimpangan digital di Afrika Selatan.Tulisan ini ini membahas mengenai ketimpangan digital yang terjadi di negara Afrika Selatan sebagai negara dengan tingkat ketimpangan terendah diantara negara-negara kawasannya. Tulisan ini dibuat untuk melihat apa saja peran negara yang menyebabkan angka ketimpangan digital di negara Afrika Selatan tidak begitu tinggi. Penulisa menggunakan konsep digital divide guna memahami kondisi ketimpangan digital yang terjadi di Afrika Selatan. Sementara itu dalam penulis juga menggunakan konsep developmental state untuk menganalisis peran negara dalam mengatasi ketimpangan menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan dokumen-dokumen kebijakan sebagai sumber data. Meskipun peristiwa historis masa lampau masih dirasa kuat oleh masyarakat negara Afrika Sellatan, namun tidak menjadi penghambat bagi kemajuan Afrika Selatan. Dalam mencapai posisinya saat ini, negara Afrika Selatan telah berupaya membuat kebijakan-kebijakan untuk mendukung peningkatan penetrasi digital dalam rangka mengurangi ketimpangan di negaranya. Negara berperan dalam mendorong pembangunan infrastruktur, pendidikan, serta membangun kerjasama dengan aktor lainnya seperti sektor privat, institusi poendidikan, hingga organisasi innternasional guna mengatasi ketimpangan digital di Afrika Selatan

E-banking in Colombia: factors favouring its acceptance, online trust and government support

The purpose of this paper is to examine the adoption of e-banking in Colombia, including a comprehensive analysis of consumer trust in this type of transaction and of the impact of the current government policy to promote e-commerce. An empirical investigation based on the UTAUT2 model collected data from throughout the country to develop 600 online questionnaires

LOW EMISSIONS, HIGH CONCERN: HOW CLIMATE COMMUNICATORS GRAPPLE WITH A TRANSNATIONAL ISSUE IN THE PHILIPPINES

Climate change is one of the most pressing scientific and social issues of the 21st century. Communication about climate change has been the subject of intense interest by social scientists for the last two decades. However, the vast majority of scholarly studies about climate communication have focused on the wealthy nations that are major carbon polluters. Little is known about how climate change is communicated in the poorer nations that produce few emissions and are the first to experience the effects of climate change. This study addresses that gap in in scholarship by focusing on climate communication in the Philippines, a developing nation where climate change has been on the national agenda since increasingly devastating typhoons struck the country in the last five years. The study uses a mixed-methods design that includes semi-structured interviews and a quantitative social media analysis. Climate activists and journalists were interviewed in Manila to understand three aspects of climate communication in the developing world: journalists’ climate reporting, and activists’ social movement frame-building as well as social media strategies. A quantitative analysis of social media strategies was conducted on activist messages on Twitter targeting the U.N. climate negotiations in Paris in December 2015. This mixed-methods study of three aspects of climate communication in the developing world is informed by theories from mass communication and social movement scholarship. In particular, the study is concerned with public sphere theory and its applicability to a transnational issue – climate change – and the advent of borderless digital media systems. In general, the study finds that climate communicators in the developing world continue to be disempowered in the global debate about emissions despite the rise of global forms of journalism and open-access digital media networks. Climate journalism is still nascent and reporters struggle to connect local effects of climate change to the global issue due to organizational and cultural constraints. Activists are better-positioned to engage with climate on a transnational scale; they do this through the climate justice frame and in their social media strategies. However, developing nation voices still struggle to be heard as they compete with a multitude of other actors even in the supposedly democratic networked media space.Doctor of Philosoph

Users’ experience of e-government services: a case study based on the Nigeria immigration service

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to a better understanding of users’ experience of e-government services in developing countries through a study of a specific e-government service, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) portal. This thesis therefore encompasses both the users’ experience of e-government services and effect of the digital divide in the use of e-government services. The NIS portal was chosen as the context for this study because it is the most well-developed e-government service in Nigeria. Those seeking to travel in and out of the country have no option but to use it regardless of whether they are currently living in Nigeria. Given the importance of profiling a significant number of users to support the investigation of relationships between variables, and the geographic scatter of the respondents, snowball sampling was used for the questionnaire survey used to collect the data. The questionnaire design and subsequent analysis was informed by previous research and theory in the fields of customer satisfaction, service quality, technology adoption and the digital divide. 351 completed questionnaires were collected and analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and Analysis of a Moment Structures (AMOS) Software. All respondents identified themselves as having used the NIS portal, with 50% reporting their main place of residence as Nigeria, and the remainder being resident in other countries. The analysis of descriptive statistics and the responses to the open questions and statements used in the questionnaire suggested that the respondents had a low level of satisfaction with the NIS website, with much of their concern stemming from issues pertaining to security, support and trustworthiness. There were also concerns documented regarding the safety of personal and financial data. They also mentioned significant issues with the ease of use of the website and its quality. Nonetheless, users valued the quality of the content and information available through the portal and were positive about its convenience and potential to deliver benefits. In terms of usage barriers, the most significant is Nigeria’s intermittent electricity supply, closely followed by the high cost of internet access, both of which pose a particular challenge, given the high rate of unemployment in Nigeria. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to generate an e-government user experience scale confirming the importance of dimensionsidentified by other researchers, as well as identifying new factors. These were: security and support, content and information, ease of use, benefits, barriers, convenience, trust and website quality. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to investigate the relationships between these factors. Content and information were found to have a significant effect on ease of use and convenience. Website quality was found to have a significant effect on ease of use, security and support. The website’s ease of use was found to have a significant effect on barriers and convenience to have a significant effect on perceived benefits. Meanwhile, security and support was found to have a significant effect on trustworthiness. Barriers and benefits as well as trustworthiness were all found to have a significant effect on user satisfaction. Demographic statistics supported hypotheses testing on the digital divide in the use of e-government services. Demographic (age, education, gender and income), social-economic (employment) and geographic (location: rural and urban, developing and developed countries) factors affected the e-government users’ internet experience, their access to computing facilities and their e-government experience thus confirming that a digital divide exists amongst NIS portal users. This research makes a number of contributions. Firstly, it is one of a very few significant studies to explore user experience of an e-government portal in a major developing country. As a result, it has brought to light important concerns regarding users’ security, privacy and trustworthiness as they relate to their personal information. Secondly, it compares users both inside and outside the country, thereby offering unique insights on the digital divide. Finally, it proposes an e-government user-experience model that identifies the relationships between the various factors that contribute to user satisfaction. Suggestions are offered for practitioners, e-government policymakers and researchers

Las tecnologías de la información y comunicación como determinantes del bienestar : el papel de las habilidades digitales en la transición al empleo en la cohorte PISA 2003

Esta tesis explora las desigualdades existentes en la transición al mundo del trabajo en el Uruguay, a la luz de un nuevo determinante escasamente abordado: las habilidades necesarias para un uso crítico y autónomo de las Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación (e-habilidades o e-skills). Constatando importante evidencia acumulada en torno a la creciente diversificación de las trayectorias académico-laborales de los jóvenes uruguayos y sus serias consecuencias para el proceso de reproducción de la desigualdad social, la hipótesis central que explora esta memoria sostiene que, aun controlando por los factores tradicionalmente asociados con la inequidad en las trayectorias (desigualdad de origen, género, competencias cognitivas, logros educativos y recorrido laboral previo), existe un componente explicativo adicional (una varianza marginal) de las habilidades digitales (como proxy de una brecha digital de elevado nivel) sobre los logros ocupacionales en la temprana edad. Utilizando como base empírica los microdatos de la primera encuesta de seguimiento (2007) del panel de jóvenes uruguayos evaluados por el Programa PISA (OECD) en el año 2003 y, en base al ajuste de modelos de regresión logística dicotómicos, los resultados de la investigación evidencian un efecto estadísticamente significativo de las e-habilidades alcanzadas hasta los 15 años sobre los logros ocupacionales (a- no manual y b-calificado) a los 19-20 años de eda