[Air-l] new technologies: diffusion comparison diagram

[Charles Ess @ ITU]

I've not seen it mentioned yet...
Carleen Maitland and Josef Bauer, "Global Diffusion of Interactive Networks:
The Impact of Culture," in Ess (ed), _Culture, Technology, Communication:
Towards an Intercultural Global Village_, pp. 87-127.  (Albany, NY: SUNY
Press, 2001)
Maitland and Bauer take the then available data on infrastructure, economic,
and cultural factors for some 60+ countries, and undertake a quantitative
analysis to determine what factors correlate with rapid diffusion of the
Internet.
Beyond the obvious - i.e., sufficient infrastructure and economic factors
(which, on the whole, are comparatively more important) - they found three
cultural factors played a statistically-significant role: English-language
facility, comparatively high gender equality, and/or what Hofstede termed
low uncertainty avoidance (i.e., relatively high risk tolerance).

Hope that helps -
Charles Ess
Visiting Professor (fall, '03)
Department of Digital Aesthetics and Communication (DIAC)
The IT University of Copenhagen
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DK-2400 Copenhagen NV
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Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies
Drury University
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Co-chair, CATaC '04: <it.murdoch.edu.au/catac>