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Anne-Marie Oostveen: Internet for FarmersNovember 6 2008

I live in a small hamlet north of Oxford where there are no visible blemishes on the God-kissed landscape. The rolling hills, the chocolate box cottages, the fields full of sheep…it all seems perfect. But the breath-taking beauty of the landscape doesn’t tell the story of the hardship of the people maintaining the fields, the fences, the hedges. Many of the farmers who work the land and rear the sheep and cattle haven’t made any profits for the last couple of years. The rising price of meat and eggs in the supermarket is not reflected in their income. Farming is tough business.

At the OII we are interested in the use of the Internet for everyday life. Since I have moved to a rural location I have gotten interested in the advantages of being online for farmers. Now that the necessary infrastructure is available all over the country farmers can log on and use the Internet for both their everyday life and managing their farming operation. Nevertheless, a study by Warren (2004) shows that less than one-third of UK farmers use the Internet for business purposes, with the worst levels of adoption for farms in the cattle and sheep sector. Although the research is somewhat dated, it still shows that there is a far lower rate of Internet use among farmers than in other small to medium-sized enterprises.

There is an online wealth of information for farmers from governmental sites to for

Alejandro Ribo Labastida: Online political campaigningNovember 3 2008

A short, a bit superficial piece in the NYT on the role of the web in political campaigning.
Link

William H. Dutton: Postdoctoral Fellowships to Study in the UK: Newton International FellowshipsNovember 1 2008

I would like to alert doctoral students and their supervisors to a fellowship scheme that aims to attract the best postdoctoral researchers to the UK for up to two years. They cover a range of disciplines, including the social sciences. They seem well funded and are now accepting applications for October 2009. You can find out more at the Newton International Fellowship Web site.

William H. Dutton: A Research Post in Online Social RelationshipsOctober 30 2008

The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) is looking for a full-time Survey Research Fellow with an interest in research on the Internet and social relationships. The candidate should have training in one or more of the social sciences and specialised experience and skill in survey research and data analysis in an academic, government or business setting. Cross-cultural and international research experience is desirable. A description of the position is available at: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/newpositions.cfm  The Fellow will be involved primarily with a study entitled ‘Me, My Spouse and the  Internet‘, supported by a grant from e-Harmony.com, a US firm developing multi-national services focused on online matchmaking.

The deadline for applications is soon: 6 November 2008. Please consider this post if you have an interest in this area of research, or alert your colleagues. Many thanks,

Bill

Professor William H. Dutton, Director
Oxford Internet Institute
University of Oxford

One St Giles
Oxford OX1 3JS
United Kingdom

Tobias Escher at the OII: How to find out whether eParticipation works or notOctober 27 2008

Under the title Effectiveness of E-Participation: Rules Of Engagement I have written a short piece for the E-Government Bulletin, a large email newsletter for practitioners and researchers interested in digital technologies and government. Given the short length and the scope of this publication it is just a brief overview about a very difficult problem, namely how to find out whether all these nice and exciting tools to engage citizens in politics actually make any difference.

While this is mainly a summary of the problems, in the coming weeks I will talk about some of my own attempts to find answers to this question. For some time now I have been busy working for mySociety to evaluate the usage of their main sites (such as WriteToThem.com and TheyWorkForYou.com) and I will be speaking about some initial findings from this work at the upcoming e-Democracy ‘08 conference in London on 11 November and earlier at an academic conference in Germany. If you cannot make it to either of them stay tuned as there should be more information on this in the near future and I would love to get your views.

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