"Internet and PC Penetration in Serbia 2006"
The Centre for Research of Information Technologies of the Belgrade Open School (CePIT), with the support of the Olof Palme International Centre, researches internet usage and information society development in Serbia for five years already. The study “Internet Penetration in Serbia 2006” was conducted on the nationally representative sample of Serbia (without Kosovo province, which is administrated by the United Nations). In relation to our previous studies of information society development in Serbia and the region, this study is essentially different since it is designed and carried out aiming to reveal the internet penetration rate in Serbia.
This study brings the data on PC and Internet penetration in Serbia, the basic demographics of internet users population, the motivation and non-users intention to start using the internet by the end of a following year, as well as the basic parameters of internet usage (place of access, type of connection, years of internet usage and some characteristics of internet behaviour). These facts are very important since they point out the current state of art which is the starting point in all discussions about information society development in Serbia .
The sample was the representative sample of Serbia excluding Kosovo (1076 subjects older then 15 years of age). The field research was conducted during June 2006.
The book is available in English Internet and PC Penetration in Serbia 2006 and Serbian Internet u Srbiji 2006 - empirijska studija internet i PC penetracije.
Research Study on Internet Users and Non Users in Serbia "Developing Network
"Developing Network - Information Society in Serbia 2005" is a result of empirical research on internet users and non-users in 26 towns of Serbia. For the first time CePIT team inquired attitude towards Internet and ICT in general of Internet non-users and mapped differences (especially based on political orientations) among those two populations – Internet users and non-users.
Besides data analyzes, special part of the book is dedicated to discussion on prerequisites and perspectives of further development of Information Society in Serbia.
The book is available online (in Serbian only, abstracts in English) Developing Network .pdf (6,9 Mb)
Research on Internet Users of South Eastern Europian Counties' Capitals
After the first research activities that CePIT conducted in the field of Internet use in Serbia during 2002 and 2003 (researches of Internet users in Belgrade and Serbia), during 2004 these activities have been widened to other countries of the region of South Eastern Europe. Methodology and research technics used in previous years - questionnaires, anquets, assesment scales and attitude scales - have been aplied again. Sample consists of 1600 Internet users from eight capital cities of this part of Europe: Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Podgorica, Skopje, Sofia, Bucharest and Belgrade. Research subject covers four topics: socio-demographic characteristics of the sample, access characteristics and Internet use, attitudes towards Internet and political orientations of Internet users.
Authors of the study are Nenad Golčevski, Goran Milovanović, Milina Petrović and Milan Sitarski.
The book is availible only on Serbian: Perspektive umrežavanja [pdf]
A Sketch of Internet users in Serbia – survey study "Global Citizens"
Introduction
Important process of benchmarking Information society is just beginning to develop in countries of SEE. As always, this is followed by a number of expert and political debates. At the moment, the focus is on the methodology for measuring the level of readiness of the given country/region to join the global Information Society. Yet, there are many questions, some of them very basic, which are often left out of these discussions. Primarily, these questions concern the very people that will have to deal with good as well as bad sides of the upcoming transformed society.
An attempt to answer some of these and many other questions of this kind has been made by the research team of the Center for Research of Information Technologies (CePIT) of the Belgrade Open School (BOS). CePIT has recently conducted a socio-psychological survey study of Internet users in Serbia . As a result, the publication entitled “Global Citizens” is bringing out the most remarkable results of this empirical study conducted in 2003. Also, the publication presents a wide introduction into the concept, theory and research of Information Society.
Methodology
Classical socio-psychological instruments have been used in this study, including various forms of questionnaires and scales. Research has been conducted on the territory of Serbia , excluding the province of Kosovo and Metohija. Each of 25 Serbian regions has been represented in the sample. The size of the sample was 1000 Internet users. Sample design was non-random and structured on the basis of gender, age and region.
Socio-demographic characteristics of users
The main finding is that Internet users in Serbia represent an elite subpopulation, especially in terms of their economic status and level of education. This key characteristic is of great importance for interpretation of other findings of this study and, for this reason, should be kept in mind.
Characteristics of Internet usage
Concerning the experience and intensity of Internet usage, Serbian users do not differ significantly from users in other countries of SEE, but are trailing when compared to the users from the EU and USA . More than 50% of them reported that they have started using the Internet during the last two years and more than 60% that they are using it less than one hour a day. 78% of them own a PC and 2/3 say that they are mostly using the Internet from home. E-mail is by far the most popular communication tool, used, practically, by everyone who is accessing the Internet. 42% among them are chat and instant messaging users and 37% are users of various forums, mailing lists, etc.
Categories of content search
Seventeen categories of content have been rated in terms of frequency by which they are being searched. After performing analyses of these data, 5 main factors have been identified to account for 61% of all www searches by Serbian Internet users. The identified factors are: gaining wide-spectrum and current information; entertainment and relaxation; education and intellectual growth; gaining information aimed at upgrading the level of quality of living and use of Internet for business.
Communication and social relations
Communication by Internet has been compared to telephone communication and face- to- face communication. The main finding is that Internet communication is more frequent only in case when other person lives abroad.
Almost 2/3 of users often feel more freedom in Internet communication than in face- to- face communication. There are significant differences among age groups, since youngest users much more often initiate contact (75%) with strangers on the Internet, then older users (30%), and more often meet in person people they have first met on the Internet.
Attitudes towards Internet and its social implications
An attitude scale towards the Internet, constructed by CePIT research team, has been applied in order to gain better understanding of structure of user's attitudes towards social implications of the Internet. Data gathered in this way, has been subjected to factor analyses which showed that there are five main factors that explain most of user's attitudes towards the Internet: general techno-optimism/pessimism, control of the Internet content, control of individuals and their behavior on the Internet, pragmatic techno-optimism/pessimism and institutional control of the Internet.
The book is availible only on Serbian: Globalni građani [pdf]
Internet Survey: Belgrade 2002
During the year 2002, CePIT research team conducted the first comprehensive research of online behaviour in Serbia and Montenegro. 300 participants - Internet users from Belgrade of age 18 - 30 - were surveyed accross a wide range of topics related to the ways they ussually utilize the Web and their behavior, habits and attitudes. In January 2003., the Belgrade Open School published the book "Internet Survey:Belgrade 2002", written by Goran Milovanović, Ivan Bakić and Nenad Golčevski , the authors of the study.The complete pdf file is available for donwload.
The book is availible only on Serbian: Internet pregled: Beograd 2002 [pdf]
