E-empowerment: Empowerment by the Internet
Section snippets
Introduction: What is Empowerment?
Empowerment is a concept that links individual strengths and competencies, natural helping systems and proactive behavior to social policy and social change (Rappaport, 1984). In other words, empowerment links the individual and his or her well-being to the wider social and political environment in which he or she functions. From a psychological perspective, empowerment links mental health and well-being to mutual help and to the creation of a responsive community (Perkins & Zimmerman, 1995).
Empowerment on the Internet
This paper suggests a model that may serve to explain what we term E-empowerment and the effects that can be observed at each of four levels, comprising (1) the personal; (2) the interpersonal; (3) group; and (4) citizenship levels. Below, we discuss each of these levels in turn:
Final word
Victor Frankl (1963) argued that what man actually needs is not a tensionless state, but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him (p. 166). As the examples discussed above indicate, the Internet is an especially apt tool for people wishing “to search and find meaning”.
The Internet offers abundant means through which individuals can, and do, empower
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2021, Information and ManagementCitation Excerpt :Consumer privacy concerns have a positive impact on defensive behaviors. Developments in the internet and the diffusion of internet-based technologies have allured discussions on consumer power, control, and empowerment in the online context [35,36]. In a similar vein, few scholars have attempted to highlight the importance of online privacy empowerment [13,14,37].
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2021, Telematics and InformaticsCitation Excerpt :Based on the above value orientation, scholars have launched many intervention programs (e.g., providing social-contextual resources, such as social support, social networks, social service utilization, and Internet skill training) to empower vulnerable groups, including senior citizens (Lam and Lee, 2006; Thakur et al., 2020; Uzar-Ozcetin and Hicdurmaz, 2019). Among those intervention programs, the Internet can be a powerful tool for empowerment (Amichai-Hamburger et al., 2008). Due to the digitalization of many resources, the Internet has changed the distribution and delivery of those digital resources, as well as the links between individuals and resources or other people.