Search

This is a report on the 2019 Oxford Internet Survey of the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), University of Oxford. The authors thank the OII; the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport; Google Inc.; and BT, for their support of this survey. This brief introductory report introduces a series of short reports on OxIS 2019 by summarizing nine basic trends that lead us to suggest a more positive view of the Internet’s role in everyday life than is conventionally portrayed in a generally dystopian period of reflection on society and the Internet.

This paper provides a case study of the changing patterns of news production and consumption in the UK that are being shaped by the Internet and related social media. Theoretically, this focus addresses concern over whether the Internet is undermining the Fourth Estate role of the press in liberal democratic societies. The case study draws from multiple methods, including survey research of individuals in Britain from 2003-2011, analysis of log files of journalistic sites, and interviews with journalists. Survey research shows a step-jump in the use of online news since 2003 but a levelling off since 2009. However, the apparent stability in news consumption masks the growing role of social network sites. The analyses show that the Fourth Estate—the institutional news media—is using social media to enhance their role in news production and dissemination. However, networked individuals have used social media to source and distribute their own information in ways that achieve a growing independence from the Fourth Estate journalism. As more information moves online and individuals become routinely linked to the Internet, an emerging Fifth Estate, built on the activities of networked individuals sourcing and distributing their own information, is developing a synergy with the Fourth Estate as each builds on and responds to the other in this new news ecology. Comparative data suggests that this phenomenon is likely to characterize the developing news ecology in other liberal democratic societies as well, but more comparative research is required to establish the validity of this model.

Global debate over the impact of algorithms and search on shaping political opinions has increased following 2016 election results in Europe and the US. Powerful images of the Internet enabling access to a global treasure trove of information have shifted to worries over whether those who use search engines and social media are being fed inaccurate, false, or politically targeted information that distorts public opinion. There are serious questions over whether biases embedded in the algorithms that drive search engines and social media have major political consequences, such as creating filter bubbles or echo chambers. For example, do search engines and social media provide people with information that aligns with their beliefs and opinions or do they challenge them to consider countervailing perspectives? Most generally, the predominant concern is do these media have a major impact on public opinion and political viewpoints, and if so, for the better or worse. This study addresses these issues by asking Internet users how they use search, social media, and other important media to get information about political candidates, issues, and politics generally, as well as what difference it makes for individuals participating in democratic processes. We conducted an online survey of Internet users in seven nations: Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the US.

The enormous growth in online activities has created all sorts of new opportunities for research. These opportunities are theoretical as well as methodological. The theoretical opportunities have been present in prior chapters but never emphasized; this chapter brings theory into focus without losing sight of methods. Specifically, the chapter discusses the explanatory power of theory based on online methodologies to address important social issues. Using this goal it describes three themes common to the preceding chapters: the volume of data, additional computer resources, and the ‘qualitative analysis bottleneck’. Each theme presents problems as well as opportunities, and the goal of this chapter is to explore how methods and theory work together to define and mitigate the problems as well as to exploit the opportunities.

This chapter discusses how new or expanded capabilities emergent from IRCT may contribute to changing social science research, particularly how research topics, methods and capabilities might change with increasing integration of IRCT into the daily social lives of most people in developed and developing societies. We have not limited ourselves to online research because we believe that firm distinctions between online and offline research is a present phenomenon, and that online research will rapidly become one of the many different contexts within which research is carried out - not the odd one out. However, we expect all social science research to change, for the very reasons that online research will become accepted and ordinary when online social phenomena become integrated into wider social and cultural life.