Social and Cultural

Journal of Community Guidance & Analysis, November 2007, Vol. 24, No. 3, p: 253-261.
INTRODUCTION

Electronic culture is of universal prevalence. The impact and ambience of electronic technology is invariably and inevitably felt by every person all through the planet. The indisputable reality right now is that men and women and organizations inextricably exist in an E-world. Nowadays, much of human requires are gratified by the use of electronic goods and services. This fact is explicit from the countless electronic items readily available and utilized by folks in their homes, offices, public areas and also those they personally carry. The emergence and rapid spread of technologies like e-commerce, e-finding out, e-medicine, e-governance, e-business enterprise, e-communication, e-banking, e-entertainment, e-properties, and so on, also emphasize the value of electronic medium in the gratification of our psycho-social desires.

The material and communication technologies (ICT) properly championed by Internet has culminated in e-culture. It has resulted in the simultaneous deconstruction and reconstruction of fundamental means of thinking about humans, worlds and technology. It has also led to shifts in attitudes, capabilities and behaviour (De Haan & Huysmans, 2002). Personality development from e-cultural perspective entails acquiring digital abilities. E-culture is a transnational and global phenomenon it is each technological and a social development. Web, in particular, is expected to bring in sweeping and lasting cultural transformations. The emergence of e-culture has implanted new demands upon people and organizations (Robbins, 2003).

The approval of e-culture concept is reflected in the keenness with which political choice-makers have taken it more than at all levels- nearby, regional, national and transnational. Extra accessible and transparent specifics is an uncomplicated expression, one thing that is unequivocally superior both from the point of view of social resources and democracy. According to Mitchell (2003) the tips of an info society and e-culture have also implied expectations of economic growth and stability, opening up of new sectors of production, improved productivity and the advent of a new, fluctuation-proof economy. In the views of Marsh (2003) the emergence of e-culture leads to cultural homogenization and immense concentrations of monetary power thereby cautions that "discover English and order a laptop or you happen to be out." De Haan & Huysmans (2002) emphasize that e-culture tends to make it imperative to create digital skill concerning the handling of electronic products and specifically the use of laptop and Online.

Presently, studies on e-culture are at a rudimentary level. The concept of e-culture is evolving and is far from conclusive. Yet, these days e-culture is increasingly perceived as a new digital media culture or digitalization of culture. Netherlands council for culture (2004) argues that, within the context of the ‘digitizing society', e-culture really should be noticed as the integration of ICT into the primary processes of productivity, distribution, presentation, preservation and (re)utilization of cultural expression. According to the view of De Haan and Huysmans (2002) the term ‘e-culture' is stated to refer to the diffusion of new technologies, its application for diverse avenues such as info and communication in addition to shifts effected in associated attitudes, values and norms. Patel and Rajendran (2005) have defined "electronic culture" as "elevated use of electronic goods by folks in a variety of places."

Purpose OF THE STUDY

E-culture although prevalent widely, is a recent phenomenon. The scientist community has just begun to study it. The exploration of e-culture may possibly only be the get started of a long-term approach of modify taking location at a international level (De Haan and Huysmans, 2002). The impetus for the new interest is the realization that e-culture is widespread, inevitable and locations adaptive demands upon people today.

Searching about one finds a vast and versatile spectrum of electronic merchandise put to use commonly by the folks. In common, the indefinite progress produced in the field and frontiers of electronic technologies has ameliorated the superior of life of all. The e-culture scenario in India is not a lot diverse from the international 1. The spread of e-culture would be influenced by a plethora of elements. Handful of amongst them can be socio-demographic aspects such as age, gender, earnings, education, native place, marital status, etc.

The assessment of associated literature indicates that investigation research of e-culture are scarce and negligible. Given that e-culture is the recent development there are no considerably standardized tools available and accessible to assess it each at national and international levels. In India, sadly, the research efforts in understanding and investigating the status of e-culture have not but gained momentum. The investigation and academic community are dormant regarding the influence of e-culture. Critiques on e-culture in Indian context indicate that it has received poor attention. Deplorably, quite a few researchers belonging to varied disciplines are however to take up this concern. In specific, from a socio-demographic perspective, e-culture nonetheless remains unexplored. A socio-demographic strategy to e-culture in Indian context is lacking totally and is worth conceivable in the light of the modern day unfathomable dimensions attained by it. Hence an attempt is produced right here to study, assess and evaluate e-culture in India from socio-demographic perspective. This study is a pioneering effort created to discover e-culture from a psychological perspective in India.

Technique

Sample

The sample for this study comprised of 326 educated individual (200 males and 126 females) randomly chosen from three distinctive towns of Tamil Nadu, India, namely, Chidambaram, Coimbatore and Erode. All the respondents were among the age group of 20 to 76 years (mean age= 42.5 years). Samples were chosen from the universe based on the judgement of the researcher. In this study people today with above higher secondary level of education (plus 2) were regarded as educated. The sample taken include things like persons from several occupational background like college teachers, school teachers, engineers, doctors, Government officers, psychologists, lawyers, merchants, technicians, assistants and housewives.

Tools made use of

The research tools used in this study for data collection had been the (1) E-culture Inventory and (2) Personal Facts Schedule.

(1) E-culture inventory