Job search information behaviours: An ego-net study of networking amongst young job-seekers

Networking is considered an integral feature of job search, yet its behavioural manifestation has received little attention in the extant literature. Here this is addressed in a study of young job-seekers that adopted an egocentric network approach underpinned by Information Behaviour theory, with specific reference to Wilson's model of information needs and seeking. The analysis of data from semi-structured interviews reveals that job-seekers acquire a broad range of job search information from contacts in their networks, and that the contributions of such contacts extend beyond the sharing of job vacancy alerts. In addition, in cases where social media platforms are accessed by job-seekers, these facilitate crucial ties to industry contacts, and provide valuable informational opportunities to those who adopt them. These findings contribute to a widened understanding of the information behaviours that support the effective mobilisation of contacts within social networks during job search, and are of particula

Online Intercultural Communication: Myths and Realities

The rapid proliferation of the use of the Internet as a tool of communication has raised a number of thorny questions in the area of intercultural communication. The main hypothesis of the present research review is that computer mediated communication has turned into a mixed blessing. Although, the Internet has the potentiality to facilitate companionate exchanges among cultures and languages, this fashionable channel of communication has turned into a tool for enhancing culturally rhetorical differences. The following issues served as the focus of our research: First, whether the Internet has closed the gap between core and peripheral countries or it has created a digitally stratified global society dividing countries between those that have online access and those without? Second, whether democracy as a social and political value is fully represented on the Internet? Third, whether the Internet has promoted globalization or it has furthered the notion of North Americanization? Humanities Review Journal Vol. 6 2006: pp. 32-4