讲座题目：The Internet as a Mirror or a Hideaway: Digital Reactance of Socioeconomically

Disadvantaged Users

主讲嘉宾：张诚教授（复旦大学）

讲座时间：2023年11月10日上午10:00-11:30

讲座地点：重庆大学B区经济与工商管理学院101室

讲座摘要：The Internet has liberated users’ interests from real-world physical constraints to experience the broader virtual world. While scholars commonly agree that users’ interests offline and online are intuitively associated, how their Internet browsing reacts to offline interests remains unclear. Some literature argues that individuals with more interests offline would likely browse more and widely over the Internet. Still, others argue that individuals with more interests offline may browse fewer and narrower over the Internet. The conflicting arguments reflect the essence of the digital inequality challenge that providing universal access to IT does not guarantee its use. Answering this question is important for IT-related implications like online engagement and services. To fill this knowledge gap, this study uses a longitudinal individual-hour-level dataset containing over 3-million observations from 3,769 randomly selected telecom users to analyze the association between users’ interests that they visit offline and their online browsing. In-depth analyses reveal that users with wider interests offline appear to browse narrowly online and vice versa. Moreover, the effect is stronger for users in the socioeconomic disadvantaged: those who live in areas with lower housing prices, the elderly and teenagers, and those who are less socially connected. Psychological reactance theory provides a legitimate theoretical explanation: the extent to which individuals use the Internet is rooted in their socioeconomic status and is the response (reactance) to the constraints they face in the real world due to socioeconomic disadvantage. This study further expands the theoretical boundaries by incorporating the digital nature of information technology and broadens the research perspective on online behaviors from a focal view to a holistic view. Research on Internet use and policy development on digital inequality and the universal use of the Internet should consider how users’ offline interests are associated with online behavior and how their offline disadvantages could be passed on through Internet cables.

个人简介：张诚，复旦大学管理学院教授，信息管理与商业智能系系主任。研究方向包括信息技术价值，平台治理和人机/智协作。在国际UTD期刊（MIS Quarterly、Journal on Computing、Production and Operations Management、Marketing Science、Journal of Marketing）上发表论文10篇。担任（过）Information & Management, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication、Journal of Association for Information Systems和Journal of Global Information Management期刊编委。获教育部高等学校科学研究优秀成果奖二等奖，国家级教学成果二等奖，以及多项会议优秀论文奖等。近10年主持4项国自科面上项目，及1项重大集成项目子课题负责人。多次担任行业内主要会议ICIS和PACIS的分会主席和编辑。