To browse, or not to browse? Third person effect among Ultra-Orthodox Jewish women, in regards to the perceived danger of the internet

Abstract The study looks at Jewish ultra-Orthodox women who use modern technologies, for purposes that are illegitimate in their community. Subjects’ perceived impacts of the Internet on self and others are analyzed, demonstrating a "third-person effect" in regards to the perceived dangers originating from the Internet. The correlations and possible implications of the "third-person effect" are discussed

Polarization of Deliberative and Participatory Activists on Social Media

The article demonstrates how social media activism polarizes and clusters into distinct deliberative and participatory arenas, using the case study of online activism for justice for Roman Zadorov in Israel. Zadorov was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Still, an overwhelming majority of Israelis think he is innocent, with the social media obstruction-of-justice campaign in his support having raised overwhelming exposure and engagement. Theorists distinguish between participatory and deliberative public processes. Supporters of participatory processes advocate for the participation of multiple stakeholders in addressing public concerns. Supporters of deliberative processes advocate for a thorough evaluation of arguments for and against any course of action before decision-making. This study demonstrates how people congregate online and polarize into deliberative and participatory clusters. The “deliberative” cluster is characteristic of groups led by admins who advocate reaching the truth through exposing relevant information and conducting fact-based deliberation. The “participatory” cluster is characteristic of groups led by admins who believe that their activities should aim exclusively at generating more attention and engagement with the general public

DIGITAL DIVIDE, ISRAEL 2008

The paper presents recent findings about the magnitude and determinants of the digital divide in Israel, focusing on gaps in Internet usage in general, and in the usage of collaborative Internet applications (web2.0) in particular

Gender, religion and new media: Attitudes and behaviours related to the internet among Ultra-Orthodox women employed in computerized environments.

We analyze patterns of rejection and adoption of new technology in a closed and conservative community through the study of ultra-Orthodox Jewish women working in computerized environments, and their perceptions and uses of the Internet. These women stand in the intersection between orthodoxy and modernity. Their workplaces are populated by ultra-Orthodox women and adjusted for their needs, but the companies that employ them are (mostly) owned by seculars, they work with computers, and (occasionally) the workplaces even have Internet access. We study if and how the conceptions of new technologies among women in a conservative community serve to demarcate, construct and reassure the borders of the community. The research questions are: How do these ultra-Orthodox women perceive the place of the Internet within their community and personal lives? With whom do they create online ties? And are there correlations between socioeconomic and sociodemographic variables and women's perceptions of the place and functioning of the Internet in the ultra-Orthodox community and their lives

The Medium or the Message? Communication Relevance and Richness in Trust Games

Subjects communicated prior to playing trust games; the richness of the communication media and the topics of conversation were manipulated. Communication richness failed to produce significant differences in first-mover investments. However, the topics of conversation made a significant difference: the amounts sent were considerably higher in the unrestricted communication conditions than in the restricted communication and no-communication conditions. Most importantly, we find that first-movers’ expectations of second-movers’ reciprocation are influenced by communication and strongly predict their levels of investment

50 years of British accent bias: Stability and lifespan change in attitudes to accents

Do accent biases observed half a century ago (Giles 1970) and 15 years ago (Coupland and Bishop 2007) still hold in Britain today? We provide an updated picture of national attitudes to accent labels by replicating and extending previous studies. Mean ratings and relative rankings of 38 accents for prestige and pleasantness by a large representative sample of the British population (N = 821) attest to a remarkably stable, long-standing hierarchy of accent status. We find little evidence of demotion of conservative prestige varieties or reranking of accents, although we do observe a slight improvement in lower rankings. We focus in detail on age and life stage, finding that most of the age patterns observed in earlier studies were in fact instances of age-grading (lifespan effects), not real-time change in attitude. The midlife phase of life corresponds to conservative shifts in the perception of global, migrant-heritage, and stigmatised varieties. Our findings add change in speech evaluation to the growing body of research on lifespan change in speech production. Finally, although effects of ethnicity, social class, regional self- and other-bias, and age remain firmly in place, earlier gender differences in respondent behaviour have more or less disappeared

Joining and Gaining Knowledge From Digital Literacy Courses: How Perceptions of Internet and Technology Outweigh Socio-Demographic Factors

Many government-sponsored policies and programs have been implemented in recent years to reduce digital inequality, but research on the effectiveness of such programs is severely lacking. We examine the short-term effects of participation in Lehava, the largest such program in Israel. Participants in our study completed a survey before and after taking introductory computer and internet classes. The findings demonstrate that motivations for participating in the program (measured before taking the course), as well as knowledge gains (i.e., differences between levels of familiarity with concepts before and after taking the course), were predicted almost exclusively by participants' perceptions of technology and the internet, and not by socio-demographic or other variables. We conclude by discussing the significance of perceptions over and above socio-demographic considerations for bridging digital inequality gaps

Draft Genome Sequence of the Redox-Active Enteric Bacterium Citrobacter portucalensis Strain MBL

We grew a soil enrichment culture to identify organisms that anaerobically oxidize phenazine-1-carboxylic acid. A strain of Citrobacter portucalensis was isolated from this enrichment and sequenced by both Illumina and PacBio technologies. It has a genome with a length of 5.3 Mb, a G+C content of 51.8%, and at least one plasmid

Draft Genome Sequence of the Redox-Active Enteric Bacterium Citrobacter portucalensis Strain MBL

We grew a soil enrichment culture to identify organisms that anaerobically oxidize phenazine-1-carboxylic acid. A strain of Citrobacter portucalensis was isolated from this enrichment and sequenced by both Illumina and PacBio technologies. It has a genome with a length of 5.3 Mb, a G+C content of 51.8%, and at least one plasmid