Displacement Effects of Online Media in the Socio-Technical Contexts of Households.

With the growing popularity of the Internet and World Wide Web, there is increasing interest in the impact these new communication technologies have on society and social institutions. Computers have evolved from the bulky, expensive and mysterious equipment owned by large corporations to affordable, functional tools for work and fun, at the office or at home. As a consequence of technological developments that enabled computers to exchange data using regular telephone lines, a revolutionary medium of communication has emerged. Computers, connected to the global telecommunication network, have become powerful tools of instantaneous communication around the world. Two distinct functions of this connectivity are: (1) online media--new agents of information and entertainment, similar to traditional media such as television, radio and print, and (2) computer mediated communication (CMC)--new channels for interactive, two-way communication that rival telephone conversations in their capacity to sustain conferencing and asynchronous communication. For the purposes of this study, we treat online media and CMC as online media.

According to recent estimates, 42% of the U.S. adult population (84 million) use the Internet. Of these, 37 million use the Internet from home on a daily basis (Strategis Group, 1999). At the end of 1998, 37% of U.S. households were connected to the Internet and it is estimated that the household internet penetration will reach 58% by year 2003 (Intelco, 1999).

Traditionally, families and households have been defined as social systems. However, modern households possess an additional technological dimension brought about by several media technologies--television sets, videocassette recorders, telephones, answering machines, radios, and now computers. Both the social and technological dimensions are important for understanding modern domestic systems, sometimes referred to as the "domestic socio-technical system" (Silverstone, 1991, p. 140). Humans and technologies in households are interconnected as members or elements of the same system. When a new element is introduced to the system, the system goes through a process of integration that may result in the reorganization of roles, relationships and functions.

Within this context, this study examines online media in the socio-technical context of existing media technologies, gender and generational differences, and family communication. Specifically, the study asks (1) if online media has affected the levels of use of the existing media, (2) if online media has affected levels of communication among family members, (3) if there are gender and generational differences in the patterns of online media use, computer mediated communication, and the consequent displacement effects, and (4) whether online media have displaced some of the functions served by the existing media.