Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Analyzing the representativeness of internet political participation

Analyzing the representativeness of internet political participation Political participation researchers have developed several evaluative techniques to assess the representativeness of political participation patterns. Yet, while the Internet has become a mainstream avenue for political participation in the United States, current assessments of online participation insufficiently apply these methods. To incorporate these methods we begin by drawing upon resource theory to inform two-stage ordered-logit models of online and offline political participation. Our results suggest that the factors predicting online participation often differ from the factors that predict offline participation. Even so, we find that those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds tend to disproportionately possess these distinct online determinants. Next, we use a wide spectrum of political opinion questions to determine whether online participators’ opinions reflect or distort those of the general population. Overall, we find that online participation tends to relate moderately with liberal preferences. However, because offline participation relates to political attitudes similarly, the Internet only marginally advantages the political voice of liberals. Finally, we discuss the implications of these results. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Political Behavior Springer Journals

Analyzing the representativeness of internet political participation

Best, Samuel; Krueger, Brian
Political Behavior , Volume 27 (2) – Mar 10, 2005
Download PDF
34 pages

Loading next page...
1
 
/lp/springer_journal/analyzing-the-representativeness-of-internet-political-participation-r0ZJgjj1s2

References (51)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
Subject
Political Science and International Relations; Political Science; Sociology, general
ISSN
0190-9320
eISSN
1573-6687
DOI
10.1007/s11109-005-3242-y
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Political participation researchers have developed several evaluative techniques to assess the representativeness of political participation patterns. Yet, while the Internet has become a mainstream avenue for political participation in the United States, current assessments of online participation insufficiently apply these methods. To incorporate these methods we begin by drawing upon resource theory to inform two-stage ordered-logit models of online and offline political participation. Our results suggest that the factors predicting online participation often differ from the factors that predict offline participation. Even so, we find that those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds tend to disproportionately possess these distinct online determinants. Next, we use a wide spectrum of political opinion questions to determine whether online participators’ opinions reflect or distort those of the general population. Overall, we find that online participation tends to relate moderately with liberal preferences. However, because offline participation relates to political attitudes similarly, the Internet only marginally advantages the political voice of liberals. Finally, we discuss the implications of these results.

Journal

Political Behavior – Springer Journals

Published: Mar 10, 2005

There are no references for this article.