Needs, not nerds: researching technological change

The growth of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and the ‘digital world’ is not as evenly spread as might be assumed. Among developed economies, there exist large-scale differences in uptake. Equally, such differences are found within national populations. Data gathered from the University of Leeds futura.com panel which was set up in 1996 indicate that consumer interest and potential uptake may be less rapid than predicted in some quarters. Also, there is little support for the proposition that the new IT-based technologies such as the internet are straightforwardly displacing other forms of technology. This paper puts forward ideas for an interpretative framework of technological innovation, based on the concept of individual and social needs and related media uses, aimed at analysing how the new coexist or supplant the old, and under what circumstances.