What Determines the Impact of Digital Media Use on Political Participation?

Reykjavík.
The next paper at ECPR 2011 is by Carol Galais, whose focus is on the effect of digital media on civic attitudes. This was triggered by the Arab Spring and other popular uprisings in which Internet media have played a role; does digital media use affect political pattitudes and political participation? Carol’s study found that digital media can affect political attitudes, but that this effect is not the same in all contexts: Web 2.0 environments enhance autonomy and political interest; they can be used to build communities; and its users may be exposed to more political stimuli than others.

But what determines the strength of these effects? The degree of economic development, critical mass, the quality of democracy, and the structure of the traditional mass media are all potential factors here. Carol and her team engaged in a programme of multilevel, multivariate factor analysis to examine the role of these factors. First, they found that using the Net does have a positive impact on the personal autonomy of its users, and a positive but modest impact on political interest; there was also a moderate positive impact on user attitudes towards protest.

The effects of digital media are stronger the more developed a country is, too (development here was measured by using the proxy of infant mortality); however, clear impacts of having a critical mass of users, the quality of democracy, and the structure of traditional mass media weren’t proven to be clear influencing driving political participation beyond mere interest. There is also a data issue here: the quality of indicators used to determine the various factors may need further improvement.