Abstract
This paper aims to reveal and explain the spatial pattern of Facebook adoption in Western Ukraine. It discusses how to trace the fragmented nature of social networking services’ (SNS) penetration at the intra-regional level using Facebook data analysis. This study has confirmed the expectation that in Western Ukraine Facebook adoption is predominantly an urban phenomenon, but with some peculiarities depending on the local context. The largest cities and regional centers attract the highest number of users, while peripheral and the economically least developed places have the lowest Facebook penetration rate. However, there are some areas with a higher number of Facebook adopters caused by a specific rural settlement system and the location in the Carpathians with no large cities ‘pulling’ the audience. The spatial pattern of Facebook adoption in Western Ukraine is an intricate and intertwined mosaic of ‘SNS hubs’ and peripheries, suggesting a ‘digital differentiation’ rather than a ‘digital divide’.
Highlights
In recent years, the fast development of technologies has brought a range of new opportunities and at the same time disappointments to different people and communities
This paper is aimed to better understand a spatial pattern of Facebook adoption among Western Ukraine population and trace which places are becoming ‘social networking services’ (SNS) hubs’ and which ones remain impenetrable to social networks
In order to assess social networking services adoption at the intra-regional level we suggest to use Facebook targeting tool and calculate the penetration rate
Summary
The fast development of technologies has brought a range of new opportunities and at the same time disappointments to different people and communities. In Ukraine, social networking services are studied mostly by sociologists with focuses on the impact on society, age effects (first of all children and adolescents), use of the SNS in political technologies, education and training. The media publish reviews on various quantitative technical characteristics of the SNS performed by IT specialists Such studies mostly do not consider the spatial aspects or cover them superficially. There are some investigations of the spatial features of SNS use under the armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine (Dobysh 2019), the distribution of social networking services in Ukraine (Puhach and Mytchuk 2017) and some regions How to trace the fragmentation of Facebook penetration at the intra-regional level using Facebook data analysis? What are the main drivers of Facebook adoption in Western Ukraine?
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