Olga Vershinskaya
11th October 2001, Namur, Belgium

Before 1993 most researchers thought that Russia would always lag behind the West in the sphere of ICTs. But the whole field expanded alongside basic social reforms. A market for ICTs appeared with the liberalisation of the telecoms sector. In the mid-90s the PC market grew at 25%, production of indigenous PCs grew at 40% per year. Communications grew 10 times in the year 1999 alone.

In 1989 Olga’s group started monitoring ICT developments. They had the hypothesis that many people would be passive as regards their use of information and that they would not use ICTs when making decisions. They conducted a first survey in the Russian town of Taganrog. At that time 0.5% had PCs. Their hypothesis was confirmed e.g. people did not use a phone to get railway timetable information, they would go to the station itself.

In 1991–92 they conducted a second, this time qualitative, study, in Moscow – accompanying Perestroika. Here they saw the first adopters of ICTs. One way of getting hold of ICTs was when people went abroad and bought PCs or VCRs. The other way to acquire PCs and VCRs was by barter between companies. People at this stage were acquiring ICTs not because they wanted them for themselves but because they were available and because they were an investment.

The 3rd study in 1997 – including both quantitative and qualitative elements – was a follow up to the first one in Taganrog. At this stage, the study of ICTs was not a respected academic subject. 2.5% now had PCs, 9% had access to PCs (e.g. via friends, colleagues) and 40% were interested in their use – so awareness of PCs was growing. There was some Internet use among students. The qualitative study revealed large changes – now people could order anything they wanted: therefore ICTs had become more accessible. The best present to give was a VCR or PC. To enter a prestigious school, a child was asked whether they could operate a computer. However, the communication side was still less developed.

By 1999–2000 most ICTs were common: PC, VCR, e-mail, Internet, and even the mobile phone. The Internet really started to grow in 1998–1999 – it may only reach 6% of the population now, but it has experienced rapid growth and attracted a lot of interest – with an explosion of websites.

There was a 4th study – qualitative – in Moscow in 1999–2000 looking at advanced users of the Internet. From other statistics the researchers knew that the most advanced users were business people, researchers and students – so they interviewed these three groups. Business people needed to have both an e-mail and Internet address for their businesses. Researchers used the Internet widely since there was free access in the universities. They mainly used the Internet for information retrieval, publishing and looking for conferences. For students, the Internet was a ‘way of life’ – they use it to find answers to all sorts of question and to communicate. Active users are generally socially active people, and the researchers and students were well integrated into the global information space – there was not much difference from the West. In addition, there was generally more use of information when making decisions. The difference between working time and free time was becoming vaguer for all these groups. And there was a digital divide even among these users – professional ICT users spoke a different language, ‘webbish’, they spent more time using ICTs and they used more applications.