Net Gains in Political Participation:

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• Net Gains in Political Participation
• Secondary Effects of Internet on Community
• A.Kavanaugh, B. J. Kim, M. Perez-Quinones,
• J. Schmitz, P. Isenhour
• Computer Science Department, Virginia Tech
• Blacksburg, VA 24061-0106

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Internet Effects on Civic Participation

• Increased community and civic engagement among
  activists
• explained by
• Education
• Age
• Extroversion
• mediated by
• Collective efficacy
• Group membership
• Online civic activity
• Activism

Kavanaugh, A., Carroll, J.M., Rosson, M.B.,
Reese, D.D. Zin, T.T. 2005. Participating in
Civil Society The case of networked communities.
Interacting with Computers 17, 9-33.
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Research Questions

• How and why does the passive majority of citizens
  use the Internet for political and civic
  purposes?
• To what extent does the passive majority
  attribute any influence on their political
  participation to the Internet?

Bimber 1999, 2001 Chadwick 2006 Dutton 1999
Hague Loader, 1999 Norris 2000 Putnam 2000
Shane 2000, among others.
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Levels of Political Participation

• Active
• 10 of total population
• Passive
• 70 of total population
• Apathetic
• 20 of total population

Verba, S., Schlozman, K., Brady, H. (1995)
Voice and Equality Civic Voluntarism in
American Politics, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA.
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Forms of Political Participation

• Vote
• Keep up with news
• Discuss Politics
• Attend public meetings
• Join local groups
• Donate money to political campaigns
• Write to newspaper editor
• Organize collective action
• Work for a political candidate or issue

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Case Study Blacksburg

• Blacksburg, Virginia and Montgomery County
• University town Virginia Tech 26,000 students
• Total town and county population 76,000
• Community computer network BEV
• Mature, stable -- established 1993
• 89 of population online 78 in county
• Secondary effects have emerged

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Household Survey Interviews

• Two phone survey rounds (Spring 05, 06)
• Round 1 (N717, 40 response rate)
• Round 2 (N430, eligible sample 570)
• Correlations, one-way ANOVA, paired t tests
• Focus group interviews (Fall 05)
• Subset of survey respondents
• Stratified on political participation, Net use
• Four sessions, 40 interviewees total
• Analyzed using NVIVO software

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Survey Constructs offline

• Political efficacy, Collective efficacy
• Civic Activity
• Read news, attend meetings, religious service,
  volunteer
• Political Interest
• Attend political talk or meeting, contact
  government
• Political Activity
• Work for political campaign, protest about local
  issue
• Political discussion network

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Political Discussion Network (Cronbach alpha.83,
N337)

• Discuss politics with family
• Discuss politics outside family
• Attend public meeting about issue of interest
• Speak up at public meeting about issue
• Express opinion different from others

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Survey Constructs Online

• Civic Activity Online
• Read news online
• look for information on local community and
  government sites
• Communicate with citizens about issue of interest
• Post factual information for other citizens
• Express opinion in online discussions
• Political Activity
• Work online for political campaign
• Email government, try to influence policy

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Correlations of Internet Use
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Political Participation Quartiles
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Passive-Active and Active CitizensDifferences

• Passive-active citizens are significantly
  different from Active citizens on measures of
• Civic Activity Offline
• Political Activity Offline
• Political Activity Online

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Civic Political DifferencesPassive-Active and
Active
plt.01 Post Hoc Multiple Comparisons
(Bonferroni) test used on all variables equal
variance are assumed Group superscripts indicate
significant differences between the respective
groups (Bonferroni test)
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Civic Political Differences Passive-active
and Active
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Passive-Active and Active CitizensSimilarities

• Passive-active were similar to active citizens
  and are significantly different from
  passive-apathetic or apathetic on measures of
• Political and collective efficacy
• Local group discussions about politics
• Online civic activity

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Civic Political SimilaritiesPassive-Active
and Active
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Similarities in Internet Effects Passive-Active
and Active
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Passive-Active like Active Citizens

• Passive-active citizens are similar to active
  citizens on measures of Internet effects
• Internet has helped me become more involved in
  local issues that interest me.
• Internet has improved my interaction with other
  citizens.
• Internet has improved my interaction with local
  government.

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Focus Group Profiles
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Focus Group Politically Passive Net Users

• I do like reading both sides of the argument on
  things that matter to me. The problem is, the
  Internet, I mean it reaches the whole world and
  so many of the things they are discussing dont
  have anything to do with me. And so I dont know
  why I have, I need to have an opinion on this or
  that. The things that I do have an opinion on
  Ive listened to and thought about and um, have
  based my decision on listening to both sides. You
  do need to listen to both sides. But I dont see
  why you have to have an opinion on everything.

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Focus Group Politically Passive Net Users

• I am somewhat active in the community because, I
  bike a lot. I commute to work and Im a firm
  believer that we should get an infrastructure for
  bicyclers biking to work, um, for many reasons
  So I am pretty active in like rails to trails
  and stuff like that. Bicycle advocacy groups. But
  most of that is through mailingslike the postal
  mailings.

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Focus Group Politically Passive Net Users

• Our entire community and neighborhood gets
  together and shows up at the forums or contacts
  the city manager or whoever the developer is that
  is going to do whatever and we are the
  proprietors to that large 3.5 acre lotthey keep
  on wanting to build up there and we keep on
  telling them aint going to happen. So weve got
  John who sends out the listserv and they go to
  you, you get some sort of information or at least
  you get some word to whats going on and we all
  show up.

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Focus Group Passive-Active Net Users

• Now how did you find those blogs?
• My wife found them
• I have to be honest with you, I dont know how
  to get into any of this stuff. She found them and
  she earmarked them or whatever you call it and I
  push the button.

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Focus Group Passive-Active Net Users

• Yeah, my daughter wrote a cheat for me to get
  into the email and I do read some of the blogs
  that I have a very clear map to get to. You know,
  push this button now type of thing. We started
  getting computers where I work about three years
  before I retired. I didnt use them at work and
  didnt have them when I was a kid.

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Summary

• Passive-active citizens are unlike active
  citizens on measures of offline political and
  civic activity
• Passive-active citizens are unlike active
  citizens on measures of online politics
• Passive-active citizens are similar to active
  citizens on measures of online civic activity,
  political discussion in local groups, and the
  effect of Internet on
• Increasing involvement in local issues of
  interest
• Improving interaction with citizens and local
  government

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Implications

• There is a glimpse of the secondary effects of
  Internet use on the local political and civic
  participation of politically passive citizens
• Politically passive citizens, like active
  citizens, are using the Internet to support and
  extend their civic interactions and activities
  online.

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• http//java.cs.vt.edu/public/projects/digit
  algov
• This research is supported by the National
  Science Foundation, Digital Government Program
• IIS-0492274
• kavan_at_vt.edu