Awareness Raising Activity
There is significant evidence that raising awareness of
the benefits of the Internet, particularly among socially
excluded groups, is a key factor in increasing Internet
usage. The Executive has run campaigns implementing the
following objectives:
increasing awareness of the
benefits of the web in socially excluded
groups;
increasing take-up and usage
of the web, particularly by lower income groups and
older people;
increasing the use of public
internet access facilities;
promoting courses that
improve basic web skills.
The campaigns first sought to motivate
people to use the internet - then to inform them that
public internet access is cheap, local, and easy-to-use -
and that help is available if they need to improve their
skills. Given the shape of the digital divide, the
campaigns targeted mainly low-income households and older
people.
Awareness Raising Campaign - May/June
2003
A low level campaign ran in
Scotland during May/June 2003. We worked with a range of
organisations to develop local activities to coincide with
the campaign. These included:
Free local internet taster
sessions in venues such as libraries and
learndirectscotland centres;
Free distribution of a
basic web skills CD-ROM through public internet
access facilities, libraries, learndirectscotland
centres, the UK Online call-centre, commercial and
voluntary sector partners.
During the campaign period, a
Helpline also provided callers with location information on
taster sessions. The helpline also gave ongoing
contact/location information of public internet access
facilities in Scotland, as well as dispatching the Internet
Made Easy CD-ROM and an information leaflet to all callers
from Scotland.
Awareness Raising Campaign -
September/October 2003
A web awareness campaign based around
national press advertising and regional radio coverage
began in Autumn 2003. This aimed to involve communities as
well as public, commercial and voluntary sector
partners.