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Freedom of speech on the Ukrainian Internet - what do people think about it?
2006-03-30
Since October 2005 Gemius SA has launched its gemiusAudience research study on the Ukrainian market. The first results are already published, to the satisfaction of all participants and open public.
At the present there are over 40 web-sites taking part in the research and the number of them is increasing constantly. "Having entered the Ukrainian market, we wanted to know first what Ukrainians think about Internet and what they use it for" - says Iwona Witkowska, sales and development manager of Gemius SA in Ukraine.
The results of this online poll are presented below, illustrating Gemius' research capabilities.
What are the purposes of Internet usage in Ukraine?
The research reveals that women tend to seek information online more actively than men: 94.31% as opposed to 88.85%. The higher share of male users (59.48%) search the Internet for goods and services. Also men are more likely to read current news, while women prefer to use communicative resources and make new friends online. In general, about 80% of Internet users at the age of 25 or older read online newspapers.
Do you think the freedom of speech exists in the Ukrainian Internet?
The most distinctive opinions when answering to this question were registered depending on the respondents' region of living. The most confident Internet users with respect to the existence of freedom of speech in Internet live in Chernigovsky region (95.90%), the second place holds Volynsky region (93.24%), and then Dnepropetrovsty region (81.62%) and Kiev (78.76%).
It is interesting to note that the results in some regions, which were always considered to be mentally similar, differ significantly from the point of this question. Thus, 74.19% of online users from the Lvivsky region do believe in freedom of speech in Ukrainian Internet and 0% "certainly do not". Meanwhile, in the Ivano-Frankivsky region only 42.65% of respondents agreed with this matter. Also, in the Donetsky region 64.38% of users admitted there is freedom of speech on the Internet and 23.78% denied that fact.
The least amount of positive answers was gathered when questioning the residents of the Lugansky region - only 41.94% of respondents believe in the Ukrainian Internet's freedom of speech, while 46.62% don't believe in that. In the rest of country regions positive opinions constitute the majority.
Somewhat less influence on opinions concerning the freedom of speech' matter have other factors such as sex, age, occupation or education level of respondents. However there exist several strong trends reflecting several differences, discussed below.Do you think the freedom of speech exists in Ukrainian Internet? Opinions of different age groups.
Younger generations of Internet users are more likely to believe in the online freedom of speech - only 11% of respondents aged 15-44 answered this question negatively. In age group 45-54 26% of users don't think Internet is a free source of information, and in the group of 55 years and older this percentage is considerably lower - 17.72%. In general, the share of positive opinions across all age groups remains on the level around 75%, with the exception of skeptically oriented 45-54 group, where this percentage is as low as 60.98%.
Remarkable distinctions between answers the youngest group of respondents (under 14 years old) demonstrates: those who agree with the questioned matter, agree with certainty ("certainly yes" - 46.54%, "more likely yes" - 0%), and those who don't express their judgment with restraint ("more likely no" 35.27%, "certainly no" 0%). This group also has the highest percentage of "don't know" answer - 18.20%, which is quite logical. However the response from those younger users was the lowest among all categories, therefore the data for them is considered the least representative.
Opinions of people with different education levels
As the research states, education level in general does not imply major differences between answers to the question of freedom of speech existence in Ukrainian Internet. Although, it is worth to mention that confidence about this matter is the lowest among the users with secondary education - 67.68%, comparing to indicators of the other groups which stand far above 70%. Interesting trend is observed while analyzing the distribution of answers by its' certainty - following the increase of the academic level of respondents, the answers are shifting from uncompromising "certainly yes" (index decreases from 51.06% for group with incomplete primary education to 32.74% for higher education category) to moderate "more likely yes".
The data of the poll can be considered as representative only for the structure of Ukrainian Internet audience. The same conclusions may not be treated as reflective for the country population as a whole. According to the gemiusAudience methodology, the sample size was enough to spread the opinions over the Internet users' structure. In total over 3.5 thousand of respondents participated in the research having filled the online questionnaires.
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