Introduction
The information man has successfully rebelled against intercontinental borders and the challenge that confronts him the most, deals with how to fit and blend in the new highly technological and culturally diverse social environment. The advances in technology and the fast modernization of the world, in general, opened new and very promising avenues for people to communicate with the world outside. A lot of people from different countries with different nationalities and cultural orientation have and continuously defied the geographic boundaries that exist between continents.
The Internet, as one of the most popular forms of new mass communication technology, has long been of full use and advantage to all sorts of communication systems especially those who are in need of efficient and wide reach. Business, information and entertainment have been communicated with ease through such technological revolution.
Today the popularity of the use of internet has been a subject of numerous studies in the academe as well as in the industries that widely uses this particular technology. The field of communication has been greatly affected by the changes brought about by the introduction of the Internet in the lifestyle of the people. The characteristics, drawbacks and strengths of the said technology has long been recognized by studies and applied by different industries all over the world.
Taiwan
Taiwan is an island off the southeast coast of China. It is comprised of several islands like the Pescadores, Orchid Island, and Green Island. It is located south of Japan and north of the Philippines with the Pacific Ocean in the east and the Taiwan Strait in the west. The Taiwan Strait separates the country from the mainland China. The population of Taiwan is now estimated to be over 21 million. The aborigines, or earliest inhabitants, are considered to be of Malay or Polynesian origin based on their languages and culture. There are two groups of early Chinese immigrants or "Taiwanese": the Hakka from south China near Hong Kong and the Fukienese from China's Fukien Province directly across the Taiwan Strait.
Sociologist Thomas B. Gold in David Shambaugh (1998) offered a characterization of Taiwan as an industrialized society describing the country with “a population that is largely urban, mobile, educated, structurally complex, consumerist, open and democratic, and cosmopolitan” and at the same time, is a society “beset with crime, pollution, overcrowding, corruption, alienation and demands for the delivery of improved social services” (p. 35). He portrayed the country as active and advance composed largely by the middle class who value freedom and an improved quality of life and who played an important role in its democratization.
Diffusion and Adaptation of the Internet in Taiwan
Just like other mass communication technologies available today such as the television, the radio, the print media as well as the wireless communication mobile phones, the World Wide Web share the same characteristics of wide communication reach far across different regions in the most efficient way possible to a large number of the population.
The American and the European regions have long been popular in the use of the Internet mainly because these countries have been the most advance in terms of technological innovations in the world. But a number of studies have shown that the percentage of Asian households with Internet connections has been catching up with US and European levels, especially in the countries of Singapore and Taiwan. According to NetValue, elsewhere in Asia, Taiwan had 41.6 percent Internet penetration, Korea had 34.2 percent penetration (more than the UK), Hong Kong had 28.7 percent (more than Germany), and China had 18.2 percent (just under France's level). Singapore and Taiwan users spend 9.9 hours and 9 hours on the Web respectively, compared to 5.9 hours spent online in the UK. Consequently, Internet users in Singapore and Taiwan are the top Asian e-mail senders in Asia and even send more e-mail than Europeans, but fall behind most US Internet users (as cited in Adam Creed, 2001, p. 53).
John Copper (1999) has provided some description on the history of the communication systems in Taiwan. He stated that the popularity of telephones in the country was experienced during the 1960s. A decade later, the number of telephones increased eightfold to more than 2.5 million. In the year 1999, there is an average of more than 106 telephone sets per 100 households while there are more than 1.5 million pager users in Taiwan and over one-half million cellular telephones. In that same year, international satellite long-distance and direct-dial calls can be made to and from Taiwan, and a transhorizon microwave system is in service to Hong Kong and the Philippines. Video-telephone service is available between Taiwan and the Pescadores and between Taiwan and Quemoy. Meanwhile, the use of the Internet has boomed by the end of 1998, and had reached 2.2 million, or more than double the previous year (p. 65).
Types of Internet Usage in Taiwan
Information and entertainment acquisitions are the well-known types of internet use. Its varied content is unimaginable with the diverse information available online contributed by people of different cultural background across different fields and disciplines. The Internet is the complete manifestation of the conglomeration of the concept of breath and depth in terms of the available information, entertainment, service, products, resources and links that it offers to the public in general. Its efficiency and its “user-friendly” feature make it the most widely used communication medium in the world.
The improvement made in the technology of the Internet made more and more people to use the World Wide Web. In Taiwan, the Internet has been known for various purposes. A survey by the government's Management Information Commission by H. Lai and D. P. Liang (1998) reported that by early 1998, more than two million people were Internet users in Taiwan. Their purposes for Internet use comprise mainly of: looking for information (89.6%), learning (53%), entertainment/chatting (47.8%), communicating (40.4%), and shopping (10.6%).
The breath of the uses of the Internet in Taiwan is manifested in the local environment in a variety of ways. Some of its uses apply in the context of the local government, business industries education and news. In the local government, the use of the Internet was highlighted in channeling the petitions and appeals of the citizens in the policies that govern them. According to Sheoi-po Lin (1981), long before the authoritarian regime started to democratize in the late 1980s, the central government of Taiwan and the TCG has set up different channels for citizens to appeal when they are wronged by certain measures or actions of the TCG that paved the way in the establishment of the Commission of Administrative Appeals. But although the government expanded channels for citizen complaints during that time, the citizens in general were not satisfied with the system (pp. 297-351). Further developments in the communication system between the government and the citizens were implemented. According to Don-Yun Chen, Naiyi Hsaio, and Tong-Yi Huang (2003), on October 12, 1995, Mayor Chen of Taipei launched an electronic mailbox called the "A-Bian Mailbox." It was the very first citizen-participation initiative in Taiwan's government agencies. The A-Bian Mailbox was first implemented in text-mode in an electronic Bulletin Board System (BBS), and was revised to a web-based edition in March 24, 1998. In November 2001, the Mayor's Box was still in operation and eventually, most bureau chiefs and deputy directors also have set up their own e-mail boxes for citizens to file complaints. In terms of media usage, about one-third of the complainants sent e-mails to the mayor, 11% sent e-mails to bureau chiefs or deputy directors. The growing use of Taipei City Mayor's e-mail box since its inception dating back to the second quarter of 1996 is worth noting as the City agencies have to respond to around 2600 e-mails a month, which has caused serious work overload since the first quarter of 2000 (pp. 525-527). The local governments of Taiwan extended the utilization of the Internet not just in addressing the concerns of the general public but also in the educational system of the country.
Just like in the United States, the educational system in Taiwan is composed of six years in the elementary schools, three years in the junior high and three more years in the high school level. As early as 1999 the Taiwanese government has been encouraging the use of Information technology in schools wherein the schools are provided with funds to purchase computer hardware each year. The research study conducted by James Huang, Lu Mei-Yan, and Decker F. Walker (1999), described how the government of Taiwan makes use and relies on the Internet as it offers seminars and workshops on using computers at schools. This was evident in the existence of computer centers in almost all schools. It was found out further that more and more K-12 teachers are using computers in their instruction. In the university, almost all professors have their own personal computers, networked with an Internet connection (p. 31).
The extent of the Internet use in Taiwan also covers the business industries of the country especially in the case of business organizations operating in the international level. A recent news article in the Wall Street Journal (Dec. 14, 1999, A17), reported that more than half a dozen of the Taiwanese Information Technology companies have subsidiaries in the United States, and these subsidiaries’ functions went beyond the logistic management of their products (as cited in Peter Chow, 2002, pp. 96-123). Peter Chow (2002) claimed that the accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), recent advancements in the Internet and related technologies, and facilities for global logistic management would ease the Taiwanese economy’s transformation to a higher level of modernization and growth through strategic foreign direct investment and continued upgrading of its high-tech industry and could partially assist the economy in securing transfers of technology, managerial skills, and marketing networks (pp. 96-123).
But despite the phenomenal growth of the Internet over the last few years, its enormous business potentials remain largely unexamined especially in its application and manipulation in Asia. It is generally expected that with the Internet, national and geographical boundaries should become irrelevant when engaging in business exchanges and that global expansion on the Internet could promise greater customer reach and profits. In the case of Internet shopping, the phenomenon of purchasing of goods and services by accessing the World Wide Web has been popular and widely used in the United States as well as in the European countries. Although the adoption rate of Internet shopping is relatively high in the West, it is still generally unpopular in the East. Taylor Nelson Sofres (2001) reported in a recent survey that 33% of Internet users in the United States have purchased online (Germany: 28%; Ireland: 18%; Norway: 19%; and the UK: 24%), while the corresponding percentages are much lower in the Far East (7% for Hong Kong, 8% for Taiwan, 9% for Singapore, and 2% for Thailand). It is worth noting however, that although the Internet shopping in East is lower compared to that in the West countries, Taiwan has the greatest percentage of online purchasing in the Southeast Asian region.
In the field of journalism, the Internet has been very popular in accessing the latest and most updated archives of news and current events information. H. Lai and D. P. Liang (1998) stated in their report that as information searches are the most important purpose for Internet use, electronic newspapers are becoming prevalent in Taiwan. The first electronic newspaper (www.chinatimes.com.tw) was established in September, 1995, and is operated by one of the two largest daily newspapers, The China Times. In early 1998, there were twenty-two professional electronic newspapers in Taiwan (C. R. Tsai, 1998). All of the electronic newspapers in Taiwan were launched either by traditional newspapers and television stations, or by computer companies. It was emphasized further that although Internet users in Taiwan account for only about 15% of the total population (C. R.Tsai, 1998), some studies predict that electronic newspapers will become an important news medium in the very near future (Lai & Liang, 1998; Yang, 1996, pp. 44-48).
Uses and Gratifications of Internet in Taiwan
One of the most popular theories of mass communication is the Uses and Gratifications Approach with its focus on the audience member rather than the message. This approach imagines the audience member as a discriminating user of media. Jay Blumer and Elihu Katz (1974) described the uses and gratifications approach that takes the media consumer rather than the media message as the starting point, and explores his or her communication behavior in terms of the direct experience with the media. It views the members of the audience as actively utilizing media contents, rather than being passively acted upon by the media. Thus, it does not assume a direct relationship between the messages and effects, but postulates instead that members of the audience put messages to use, and that such usages act as intervening variables in the process of effect (p. 33). Most of the studies that made use of the uses and gratifications approach in the use of Internet and other related technologies were comparison of behavior between and among genders.
Over the past decade, researchers have investigated people's perceptions or attitudes regarding computers and the internet particularly gender differences. These studies, in general, revealed that male students have more favorable attitudes; for example, males were found to have lower anxiety and higher control when using the Internet (as cited in C. C. Tsai, S. S. J. Lin & M. J. Tsai, 2001, pp. 41-51). A number of studies have shown that females generally had lower self-efficacy with reference to computers or the Internet (A. Durndell & Z. Haag, 2002; L. A. Jackson, K. S. Ervin, P. D. Gardner, & N. Schmit, 2001; B. E. Whitley, 1997). A. Durndell and Z. Haag (2002) further found significant correlations among higher computer self-efficacy, lower computer anxiety, more positive attitudes toward the Internet and longer reported use of the Internet (pp. 521-535).
In studying adolescents' attitudes toward computers, A. Colley and C. Comber (2003) examined gender differences in perceptions of school computing by asking their preferences in using computers at school. The research investigation revealed that girls perceived computers as tools for accomplishing tasks, while boys approached them as technology for play and mastery. They further suggested that these gender differences were important for understanding how computers are approached and utilized in educational settings by adolescents (pp. 155-165). C. C. Tsai (2004), in interviewing forty adolescents, developed four categories to describe adolescents' perceptions of the Internet including the Internet as technology, tool, toy, and tour. He found that many adolescents perceived the Internet as a tool, some simply as a technology, and some as a toy (pp. 465-470). Moreover, S. S. Liaw and H. M. Huang (2003) proposed that the perceptions of a new technology (such as the Internet) and how it has been accepted shaped the factors that affected individual desires to use related products in the new technology (pp. 751-765). Chia-Ching Lin and Chin-Chung Tsai (2004) found that males expressed more positive Internet attitudes than did females on the perceived usefulness and perceived control of the Internet but no significant difference was found in the affection and behavior aspects of using the Internet between genders. More importantly, females tended to express higher Internet self-efficacy than did males. Gender differences regarding the Internet are expected to gradually narrow because female adolescents can now acquire more experience in using the Internet than they did in the past (p. 725).
Displacement Effects of the Internet on Interpersonal Communication
It should be pointed out that voices and opinions are will be addressed using the features of the Internet will only be applicable to people who have their Internet connection. This creates a social divide in terms of the economic capacity of a person to avail of a computer unit and eventually an Internet connection. There will be inevitable cases of individuals who hold strong principle regarding a specific issue, topic or social problem but he or she lack the means of voicing out his or her personal views because of the financial challenges. In this light, the Internet provides the contributions to people who can avail the services that are offered by this technological innovation. There are also cases when although a person has the means and resources to be virtually active in the political and social debates which are facilitated by the Internet, the individual however, lack the interest of participating in the intellectual discourse. The other forms of leisure provided by the Internet are often the option for most individuals.
Any discussion of this issue must account for the extraordinarily first-world bias of the Internet. Literacy rates and education vary widely across the world, and are minimal or non-existent in many places. The United States dominates the Internet, with more than 83 million users in June 2001, more than all other countries put together, which roughly correlates to the amount of US-generated content of the Internet (M. A. Zook, 1999). Although the number of country-specific discussion groups and sites are emerging, the huge number of these sites and discussion groups are still American-centered. That is why the bulk of concerns and issues are largely confined in the context of the American society which largely concerns its people alone.
Literacy rates vary widely across the world. In many countries, the literacy rate is as low as it was in Europe in the middle ages and education is another factor in the contributions of the Internet as a venue for personal communication. Internet discussion presumes that participants have a certain basic knowledge of the world. Many people do not attend school, or attended for just a few years, and do not have the knowledge base that allows discussion on an equal basis. This means that even if citizens of second world or third world countries had computers and phone lines, their literacy and knowledge base would tend to block them out of discussion, and it would be harder to make their concerns heard.
International communication is only possible if people are able to converse with one another. Millions of people cannot access the Internet because their languages are not the net's primary operating language. There is approximately ten times more English content on the Internet than the proportion of English speakers in the world. Materials in English represent about 82% of all online content (Radio Free Europe, 1997), compared with an estimated 508 million people (just 8.2% of the world's population of 6.18 billion) who speak English as a first or second language (Ethnologue, 2001). In this light, the problem of language differences is a contributing factor to communication barriers in the context of the Internet interconnectivity. English is considered to be the universal language practiced around the world and the reason why other countries have difficulties in participating in the virtual activities that the Internet offers.
Not only does a net participant or user require English, they require "Cyber-English", which is a form of English that J. Lockard (1995) sees as dominating other forms. According to him, it is the latest stage in a historical procession of geopolitical domination that uses language as a tool of domination: "Learn it or else. Speak so 'we' understand you, or take a hike and be damned. Meaningful net participation requires both advanced semiotic manipulation and substantial economic wherewithal, joint and mutually reinforcing capacities that delineate and inform the concept of 'language/class." (Lockard, 1996)
This term specifies the intersection that creates what Edward Kamau Braithwaite calls "nation language"; or the Caribbean and other Englishes that are not standard imported English, but that of the submerged, surrealist sense and sensibility. Non-native English speakers struggle to contribute to discussions as they use short sentences with poor grammar and punctuation. English speakers will insult their English, along with their opinions. They are "permanent clueless newbies, a global class of linguistic peasantry who cannot speak technological Latin" (Lockard, 1996). Clearly, English-speaking ability distinguishes between classes of users, their acceptance in net groups, and their ability to participate.
It is apparent how the relatively liberal Western culture and the relatively conservative Eastern culture pose differences when compared. It is a common knowledge that Americans and Europeans are perceived to be more independent, competitive and aggressive in the way they deal with situations and people compared to Asians whose approach to communication is grounded on the belief of the goodness preserving and maintaining harmonious relationships within the business organization.
National culture is defined as 'the values, beliefs and assumptions learned in early childhood that distinguish one group of people from another' (K. L. Newman and S. D. Nollen, 1996, p. 754). One of the most widely studied cultural frameworks is that proposed by G. H. Hofstede (1980). Hofstede's cultural framework consists of four dimensions: individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and masculinity-femininity (pp. 125-214). Prior works suggest that individualism-collectivism affects the ways people form trust (P. M. Doney, J. P. Cannon & M. R. Mullen, 1998, pp. 601-620; S. L. Jarvenpaa, N. Tractinsky, L. Saarinen and M. Vitale, 1999, pp.1-29) and hence may affect people's willingness to trust online vendors. On the other hand, uncertainty avoidance affects the willingness of people to accept uncertainty (H. Park, 1993, pp. 342-350; M. Keil, B. C. Y. Tan, K. K. Wei, and T. Saarinen, 2000, pp. 299-324). Therefore, we believe that these two cultural dimensions, individualism-collectivism and uncertainty avoidance, may affect Internet adoption rates.
The Internet is a highly efficient system for the cataloging, accessing and delivery of images such as blueprints and photographs and advertisements. This greatly facilitates the transmission of encoded communication messages. The Broadband Internet support much cheaper teleconferencing which allow the exchange of some complex and context-dependent messages that heretofore were delivered between and among individuals. Internet conversations resemble e-mail in that it involves such low levels of costs to sender and receiver which in the process, consequently provide and create little relationship bond.
Online communities are formed wherein people of similar lifestyle, interests and views can develop small interconnected virtual society that will cater to their specific needs and interests. Interactivity is guaranteed because of the interconnectedness between the audience members and that of the web sites enabling more numbers of two-way communications than what has been previously possible. However, according to Thorton (2002), these contributions of the Internet do not hold out the promise of a revolutionary change to participatory democracy, but they do present an opportunity for more voices to be heard in the public sphere in a new way.
According to Edward E. Leamer and Michael Storper (2001) it is widely believed that the Internet will have a more dramatic effect on economic geography than previous rounds of innovation by allowing distant organization of new and pioneering activities. They argued that “coordination of new and innovative activities depends on the successful transfer of complex uncodifiable messages, requiring a kind of closeness between the sender and receiver that the Internet does not allow”. They pointed out that the Internet is a medium that may help to maintain relationships, but does not establish deep and complex contacts. They provided an examination of historical data on trade in products between countries which revealed that the vast and steady improvements in technologies for transacting across space have not eliminated the significance of geographical proximity and that many messages can be communicated effectively only if the parties "know" each other. Information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as the Internet, create new possibilities for transmitting messages, and in so doing they may affect the kind of relationship the parties must have in order to send and receive a given kind of message (p. 641).
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