Page 236 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Information Technology and Political Engagement
television watching. The model for the Internet shows that it is possi-
ble to predict use of this new medium about as well as use of television
and slightly less well than use of newspapers. 45 In the Internet model,
education is significant. As one would expect, the more education, the
more likely one is to use the Internet for political information. Age works
in the negative direction, which is also not surprising. Younger citizens
are more likely to obtain political information through the Internet than
older citizens. Neither race nor sex is significant in the Internet model,
whereas women are less likely than men to use traditional media for po-
litical information and whites are more likely than others to pay attention
to newspapers.
Another intriguing departure from patterns of traditional media use
involves the trust variables. People using the Internet for political infor-
mation are more likely to be mistrustful of traditional media, and are
more likely to report feeling that other people are not helpful in a general
sense. These variables suggest an element of cynicism influencing media
choice. People using the Internet for political information are well edu-
cated, somewhat younger users of traditional media who have an interest
in politics and who tend to be skeptical of what they read and see in other
media. They are not outwardly mistrusting of other people, but may feel
somewhat more independence and self-reliance with respect to others.
What about voting and other forms of participation? My approach
to this issue was to develop a model of engagement with politics us-
ing standard predictors of participation – many of which are correlated
with Internet use – and also a variable for using the Internet for ob-
taining campaign information. In this model, I included independent
variables for education, age, income, sex, ethnicity, race, contact by a
mobilizing organization, interest, trust in others, and sense of efficacy. 46
The Internet variable measured whether the respondent had obtained
information about the campaigns through the Internet. A finding of sig-
nificance for this variable would indicate a correlation between Internet
use and political engagement that is not simply the result of other factors,
such as general political interest. Such a correlation would not necessarily
show causation, since other factors might still contribute to both Inter-
net use and engagement, but it would be suggestive. At the very least,
a positive finding would indicate that use of the Internet is connected
to participation-related factors not identified here and in most standard
45 2
Nagelkerke r = 0.20.
46
The efficacy variable comes from level of agreement with the statement “People like
me don’t have any say about what the government does.”
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