Habits And Social Networks Experiences By Women In A Rural Area
Author(s):
Olga Buzón García (presenting / submitting) García-Pérez Rafael (presenting)
Maria Angeles Rebollo (presenting)

Mª Rosario Rodríguez-Díaz (presenting)
Conference:
ECER 2013
Format:
Poster

Session Information

06 SES 05.5 PS, General Poster Session

General Poster Session

Time:
2013-09-11
12:30-14:00
Room:
FUAYE
Chair:

Contribution

One of the realities of the XXI century is the technological transformation that led to the integration of different modes of communication in an interactive network of global reach. This is extremely dynamic and complex systems, which are causing an interactive network that is not homogeneous in all societies: the gender, age, educational level, habitat (urban / rural), professional status, etc., are conditional variables. In respect to the experience of women in the use of this great global network (the Internet), this technological transformation has been considered by several studies, very similar to the experiences with science and technology in general. That is, there may be gender differences in the use and content of Internet, and reflect specific stereotypes of class, race and gender (Kennedy, 2000 and Burkle, 2003).

In a study by Caldevilla (2010) explains that Spanish women have increased in recent years by 63% weekly use of Internet. These data are corroborated by the report eEspaña 2012 (Fundación Orange, 2012), which also examines the role of women in social networks. The final results of this report indicate that women and men are practically at the same level in the use of social networks (69% and 70% respectively).

The study that we presented plays a key in the future of rural Spain, and more specifically, in Andalusia: rural women in the province of Seville. We understand that this territory and its organizational structure is determinant on their present and future. Despite the heterogeneity of the group, we believe that women are challenging the traditional patriarchal role attributed and are willing to expand their frames breaking situations of inequality, embodied in their productive work invisible in the lowest wage payment in the upper load reproductive work, among many other aspects.

In this sense, the Internet is presented as a powerful tool to eliminate geographic barriers, cultural and even temporary. From this consideration, it becomes more necessary and urgent to make an action to prevent new digital inequalities based on access conditions.

In this case  acting is needed on digital literacy skills, and in the  Internet appropriation  as a new framework in that the people are being socially and culturally developed like a new postmodern citizenship in any corner of the planet.

Considering the importance and influence social networks online currently, and the existence of a gender digital divide as evidenced by data from different studies (Clipson, Wilson and Dufrene, 2010; Stoilescu and McDougall, 2011; Foundation Orange, 2012), our proposal is based on analyzing how and how rural women interact in these social networks. For this, we analyzed the experiences and main usage patterns that women have when participating in online social networks.

The aims of our study are: exploring and describing the experiences and usage patterns of social networking by rural women, and determine the degree of motivation and abandonment of social networks based on different sociodemographic variables (age, marital status, employment status, etc.).

Method

The study group consists of 478 women from different municipalities of Seville's province, Spain) aged from 18 to 65 years (medium 36,89). Most women in the sample are Spanish, live in families with or without children; they have a high school studies or college studies and are paid employment. The instrument consists in a questionnaire with two dimensions: the first helps us to determine the degree of satisfaction of these women with social networks, to detect the degree of motivation regarding the use of social networks, and the reasons for abandonment of a social network. In the second dimension, six scales are proposed to meet these women habits shown to interact with networks. This paper presents the results of a descriptive study and explores some ex post facto contrasts to assess the impact of sociodemographic variables into the experiences and habits of use of women's social networks in rural areas of the province of Seville.

Expected Outcomes

The results show that women used Facebook and Tuenti, mainly because they are dynamics, easiest to use and entertaining. The motivations for accessing to social networks are based on keeping in touch with friends and acquaintances, and communicate with the people quickly and free. Furthermore, women under 25 years, unmarried and paid employment are more motivated in using social networks than other women. Only 23.5% say that they have abandoned some social network. The women who presenting most degree of abandonment, are unmarried women who have children, compared to married or widowed women without children. The reasons for leaving these networks are because they didn't use this network, because they have made account but never used it and because his or her friends never used it. We observed that 54.1% confirms to connect to social networks always at home and through the laptop. In respect to activities that carried out by women in social networks, the women say that several times a day are communicating with their contacts (24.7%), several times a week they see pictures (22.2%) and once daily follow the activity of their contacts (17.4%). They never participate in activities like online games (71.2%) and searching jobs (51.2%).

References

Burkle, M. (2003). Technology has forgotten them: Developing-world women and new information technologies. En J. Malloy (Eds.) Women, Art and Technology. MIT Press. Caldevilla, D. (2010). Mujeres 2.0. Una visión sobre el consumo de Internet de la mujer de hoy. Revista Icono14, 8 (1), 326-336. Clipson,T., Wilson, S. A. y DuFrene, D. D. (2010). The social networking arena: battle of the sexes. Business Communication Quarterly, 75 (1), 1-5. Fundación Orange (2012). eEspaña 2012. Informe anual sobre el desarrollo de la sociedad de la información en España. Madrid: Fundación Orange. Kennedy, T. (2000) Women and the Internet. An exploratory study of feminist experiences in Cyberspace. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 3(5), 707-711. Stoilescu, D. y McDougall, D. (2011). Gender digital divide and challenges in undergraduate computer science programs. Canadian Journal of Education, 34 (1), 308–333

Author Information

Olga Buzón García (presenting / submitting)
University of Seville
Didactic and Educational Organization
Sevilla
García-Pérez Rafael (presenting)
Universidad de Sevilla
Sevilla
Maria Angeles Rebollo (presenting)
University of Seville
Faculty of Education
Sevilla
Universidad de Sevilla
Sociología
Sevilla

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