INTERNET AUDIENCE ATTITUDE WITH REFERENCE TO PUNJAB

Abstract

ABSTRACT Internet has become pervasive in most domains of our lives and has become a priority tool for Accessing information and communicating with people an important shopping medium. The present research has been undertaken with the objective to find out the Internet audience attitude of people of Punjab. The theoretical ideas and empirical views of the various researchers are presented and explained in three parts: i) Growth of Internet and Web enabled services ii) Comparative Study of Traditional Advertising and Internet Advertising and iii) Internet Audience Attitude and Consumer Concerns The broad findings of the study depict that users spend less than 5hrs./week on Internet. 59.89% users’ access Internet from their homes and workplaces and 19.22 percent prefer to visit cyber cafes for assessing the Internet. The respondents prefer to use the web for their (i) work/business and (ii) for communication with others. Respondents in the age group less than 20 yrs preferred using the Internet for entertainment purposes. Internet audience considers speed/cost as the biggest problem in using the web. This research indicates that the least satisfying aspect to buying online is still website seurity/privacy. The present study reflects that Internet is considered a source of providing information. When it comes to finding about new web pages/sites the preferred choice is websites followed by hyperlinks. Overall results which emerge from the analysis are that the people of Punjab accept the viewpoint that the Internet is an information provider. The analysis highlights that Internet audience accepted that the products they get from Internet were of worth. With the increase in education and income the number of respondents who were more satisfied with the service of Internet increased. Respondents in Punjab consider that Internet Advertising is making people materialistic, i.e., interested in owning and getting things. Factor analysis of Internet audience attitude indicates that the overall mean of all the factors is 3.38. The mean of second factor, i.e., claims of Internet advertisement is higher than the overall mean of the factors, i.e., 3.80. So it is clearly depicted that this factor is important factor considered by the audience. User responses can be traced for the better implementation of the viii existing strategies. It is believed that Internet will be a very promising media for the future. The respondents accept Internet as an effective media which provides them information about the products/services.