Foreword

Matthias Kammer, Director of DIVSI, the German Institute for Trust and Safety on the Internet

Matthias Kammer,
Director of DIVSI, the German Institute for Trust and Safety on the Internet

DIVSI Opinion Leader Study: Who shapes the Internet?

In line with our self-formulated working basis, DIVSI aims to facilitate an open and transparent dialogue on trust and safety on the Internet and to vitalize this dialogue with new aspects. In order to achieve this goal we provide the general public with the latest facts which can then serve as a foundation for broad-based discussions.

With our “Milieu Study on Trust and Safety on the Internet”, which has now gained national recognition and acceptance, we achieved an important interim goal. This first study focused on people living in Germany and examined the motives and attitudes that determine their relationship with the Internet as well as their expectations regarding safety and data protection.

The new DIVSI study published today goes a step further, focusing on an important and clearly defined group of people. Continuing our established collaboration with the prestigious SINUS Institute, we asked this organization to conduct a scientific, nationwide survey to reveal the attitudes of opinion leaders in Germany to the Internet.

We wanted answers to the following questions: Who actu- ally shapes the Internet? How conversant are opinion leaders with the Internet? How do they estimate their own influencing possibilities? How do they regard the needs for both safety and freedom? What opportunities, areas of conflict and risks result from this?

In-depth personal interviews were conducted with leading representatives from the areas of politics, business, media, social organizations, the public sector and science. This is the first time that such a specific and targeted study has been undertaken in Germany. The results of the study point to four essential statements, which I will here describe in brief:

  • Private-sector enterprises are the drivers of current developments in the Internet. This means that companies not only take the role of service providers but are also the ones who determine the rules – and who continually change them, too.
  • No one is really offline any more. The Internet is becoming important in ever more areas of life. Online and offline spheres are increasingly intermingling and merging. It is growing ever harder to separate the two states.
  • The opinion leaders do not believe that an overall structural responsibility for “the Internet” is possible, nor do they con- sider it desirable. Their solution is to pass a large proportion of the responsibility to the users.
  • It is becoming ever more difficult to create generally appli- cable rules and to make mutual agreements for the Internet as a ‘negotiable space’. The discourse is increasingly shifting from a purely technological perspective to a ques- tion of the ‘digital culture’.

Those familiar with our first study will immediately note that the statements of the opinion leaders stand, in some respects, in clear contrast to the attitudes and approaches of the general population as revealed last year. According to the previous study, 39 per cent of people living in Germany were “Digital Outsiders”. However, in the view of those who shape the Internet, these people too are living in an environment that is increasingly being affected by the online world. We believe that further analysis of such findings is sure to provide valuable impetus for future debate.

It is to be expected that the presented results will not bring undivided praise for DIVSI. But this cannot and should not hinder us from submitting potentially unwelcome facts as a basis for discussion. Steering clear of any superficiality and sensationalism, the study is intended to create a starting point that can help to make our networked world a more trustworthy and safer place.

On this note I wish you informative and absorbing reading with the DIVSI Opinion Leader Study. In the coming months we will – in collaboration with the SINUS Institute – further extend this survey to create a nationally representative study. This work will be presented at CeBIT 2013.

Matthias Kammer
Director DIVSI