News

• SACM Best Paper Award

  16th March 15

  

  For their comparative study of the digital divide, Moritz Büchi, Natascha Just, and Michael Latzer received the Best Paper Award of the Swiss Association of Communication and Media Research (SACM) at the 2015 Annual Conference.

   

  The conference, hosted by the University of Bern, March 13 – 14, 2015, focused on “Contexts and Consequences: Approaches and Results of Comparative Communication and Media Studies”.

   

  The paper titled “Comparing Internet use: Sociodemographic differences in five countries” contributes to the methodological and substantive understanding of the digital divide. Based on representative survey data from the World Internet Project, Internet usage differences are modeled for countries with very high access rates. The paper shows that measurement invariance testing is a crucial factor for unbiased comparative research. A generational and educational gap in types of Internet use is evident, whereas gender differences have narrowed. The results are further discussed in the light of digital inequality and the link between Internet access and usage.