Les non-usagers de l’internet. Axes de recherche passés et futurs

Cet article rassemble une partie des premiers travaux sur le non-usage de l’internet. La première partie est essentiellement conceptuelle et avait été présentée en 1999, au moment du pic de la première explosion des sites en « .com » et lorsque les attentes à l’égard de l’internet et les craintes en matière de fracture numérique étaient à leur apogée. Les auteurs démontrent comment le non-usage pouvait être un choix volontaire et n’aboutissait pas toujours à l’exclusion sociale, ni n’en était le produit. La seconde s’appuie sur une étude empirique qui s’est intéressée à la manière dont des personnes d’âge mûr trouvent des informations en matière de santé et les raisons pour lesquelles, dans ce cadre, ils utilisent ou non l’internet. La conclusion engage une réflexion sur des travaux récents traitant du non-usage de l’internet et propose des axes théoriques et empiriques pour les recherches futures.This article brings together some of the earliest work on non-use of the internet. The first part is largely conceptual, and was first presented in 1999 at the height of the first dot-com boom when expectations about the internet and fears about the digital divide were both at their height. The authors demonstrate how non-use could be a voluntary choice and may not always be the result of nor lead to social exclusion. The second part is based on empirical research about how middle-aged and older people find health information and the reasons why they do or do not use the internet in that process. The article invites to think about recent work about non-use and future theoretical and empirical research directions

Lost or found? Discovering data needed for research

Finding data is a necessary precursor to being able to reuse data, although relatively little large-scale empirical evidence exists about how researchers discover, make sense of and (re)use data for research. This study presents evidence from the largest known survey investigating how researchers discover and use data that they do not create themselves. We examine the data needs and discovery strategies of respondents, propose a typology for data reuse and probe the role of social interactions and literature search in data discovery. We consider how data communities can be conceptualized according to data uses and propose practical applications of our findings for designers of data discovery systems and repositories. Specifically, we consider how to design for a diversity of practices, how communities of use can serve as an entry point for design and the role of metadata in supporting both sensemaking and social interactions.Comment: Harvard Data Science Review (2020

Writing from Experience

This article examines how weblog authors present their online gender identity, in order to establish how these modes of presentation fit into the research landscape about gender identity and computer-mediated communication (CMC). After a preliminary descriptive analysis of a sample of Dutch and Flemish weblogs, the authors conduct a qualitative content analysis of four of these `blogs'. They conclude that these weblog writers present their gender identity through narratives of `everyday life' that remain closely related to the binary gender system. However, their performance of `masculinity' and `femininity' is more diffuse and heterogeneous than some theories in the field of gender and CMC would assume. In addition, the act of diary writing on weblogs can be understood as challenging the masculine connotation of the weblog as an ICT, demonstrating that the use of a technology is pivotal in shaping the ways in which technologies themselves are conceived of as `masculine' or `feminine'

Turned on or turned off? Accessing health information on the Internet

It is often claimed that Internet access provides people with more and better health information, resulting in better-informed patients who engage in more reflexive and equal negotiations with their doctors. Counter arguments suggest that Internet information overload will increase levels of anxiety and confusion amongst health care consumers, resulting in their disempowerment. This paper discusses on-going research investigating the ways Internet users and non-users access and manage information about specific health treatments. The paper describes how our research design and methodology is enabling us to avoid the generalisations and tendencies towards technological determinism found in much previous research in this field

Understanding Data Search as a Socio-technical Practice

Open research data are heralded as having the potential to increase effectiveness, productivity, and reproducibility in science, but little is known about the actual practices involved in data search. The socio-technical problem of locating data for reuse is often reduced to the technological dimension of designing data search systems. We combine a bibliometric study of the current academic discourse around data search with interviews with data seekers. In this article, we explore how adopting a contextual, socio-technical perspective can help to understand user practices and behavior and ultimately help to improve the design of data discovery systems.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, 7 table

Aspirational metrics: a guide for working towards citational justice

Is it possible to have a just politics of citation? Reflecting on their work to create a guide to fairer citation practices in academic writing, Aurélie Carlier, Hang Nguyen, Lidwien Hollanders, Nicole Basaraba, Sally Wyatt and Sharon Anyango* highlight challenges to changing citation practices and point to ways in which authors and readers can work towards equitable citations

Lintheads and barons: filling the silences of the Loray Mill Strike

This dissertation intends by contextual analysis to examine a Southern textile community and through its literature--formal and informal, and written before, during, and after the 1929 Lora Mill strike--to show how the stories of this community construct a "figured world" in which identities were formed and lives were made possible through the genres and language practices of different social groups in Gaston County. It argues that each discourse--that of the mill barons, the mill workers, and the communist labor organizers--developed primarily along lines of money and social class, and shows how each discourse defines itself and is subsequently defined, silenced, and/or given voice by the others. It studies the genres of each written discourse (histories, newspapers, dramatic presentations, songs, and other studies) from a power standpoint that each genre maintains this particular social context