UCLA to Study Internet’s Influence

UCLA researchers are expected to unveil today plans for an ambitious, long-term study designed to track the social consequences of the Internet and its expanding role in consumers’ lives.

The project will involve periodic surveys of thousands of households in as many as 18 countries and has the financial backing of technology giants including America Online Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

The study is being supervised by UCLA’s Center for Communication Policy, which has been a leader in researching such issues as violence in television programming.

Researchers said the first results from the study, which is designed to carry on for decades, could be released in the fall, and it’s getting underway at a critical time in communications history.

“Imagine how much we would have learned if a study of this type had been conducted of television beginning in the early 1950s,” said Jeffrey Cole, director of the UCLA center and principal investigator of the study.

Consumers’ use of the Internet and their views on technology are routinely gauged by research organizations, companies and industry groups.

But Cole said this project is the first long-term study designed to track throughout years the Internet’s influence on everything from political attitudes to shopping habits.

Much of the study, Cole said, will focus on disparities between households that use the Internet and those that do not. Today, an estimated 50% of U.S. households have computers, but fewer than one in four households has Internet access.

Preliminary surveys of 2,000 statistically selected households in the United States are set to begin within six weeks, Cole said.

UCLA will oversee the project, with cooperation from universities and research organizations overseas. Institutions in Singapore and Italy are set to participate the first year, but Cole said that within five years, the study is likely to expand to include 15 more countries.

The project is expected to cost between $600,000 and $800,000 per year and will depend heavily on funding from sponsors including the Walt Disney Co., Sony Corp., GTE Corp. and Pacific Bell.

Cole said none of the sponsors will have access to survey participants or any control over the research. But executives at participating companies said they hope to learn a great deal from the results.

Steve Case, chief executive of America Online, said the study will yield “critical information about the ways in which our lives are being transformed by the evolution of interactivity.”