Abstract
Digital Media and Political Engagement Worldwide is an unusually cohesive edited volume on the relationship between internet usage and political involvement around the globe. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the political and/or social implications of internet usage. As the editors note, the volume is focused on three facets of political involvement: political information consumption, political attitudes (e.g., internal and/or external efficacy), and political participation (both institutional and extra-institutional). Each chapter examines the relationship between internet use and one or more of these facets of political involvement in different countries.
Specifically, the introduction and first two substantive chapters review existing research, largely based on research on the United States and United Kingdom, laying a theoretical foundation for the rest of the volume. The rest of the book, save the conclusion, reports on recent empirical research.
The first suite of chapters is focused on the United States and Europe. Chapter Three analyzes survey data on political involvement in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election to show that internet usage increases political interest, the likelihood of voting, and the likelihood of engaging in campaign-related activities just before an election, but does not impact the likelihood of primary voting. Chapter Four compares online political participation in the United States and Spain. Results reveal that rates of online petition signing and online donations are similar between the two countries and that political interest is positively related to participation but efficacy is unrelated to participation in both countries. Spanish respondents are more impacted by the digital divide, less likely to directly contact representatives online or offline, and more likely to comment about politics online. Chapter Five examines the relationship between internet usage and political interest across 15 EU countries, but places special emphasis on Spain. Findings suggest that even after controlling for other factors, internet usage increased political interest and internal political efficacy (except in a few outlier countries). In the Spanish case, internet skills had more impact on political interest than did sheer time spent online. Chapter Six examines the relationship between internet usage and political participation in Spain, adding nuance to a large ongoing debate, discussed more below, about whether internet use mobilizes only those already interested (referred to as a reinforcement effect), or draws new actors into politics (referred to as a mobilization effect). Findings show that internet usage increases the likelihood that previously involved individuals will engage in extra-institutional political action, but also has a small positive impact on mobilizing the previously disengaged. Chapter Seven examines multiple facets of political involvement in Italy, finding that television remains the most important news media, far more Italians talk about politics face-to-face than online, and slightly more Italians participate in protest online than offline. Chapter Eight uses data from a German survey, finding a positive and significant relationship between internet usage and political participation, even accounting for self-selection effects related to internet usage.
The rest of the volume explores these relationships in Latin America, the Middle East, and China. Chapter Nine uses one protest-related campaign from each of Argentina, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Peru, and Uruguay as case studies. It evaluates three predictors of the level of internet use in each campaign, finding the greatest support for demographic characteristics of organizers: where organizers are younger or more internet-savvy, campaigns rely more heavily on internet technologies, regardless of variation in organizational structures and in national levels of internet adoption. Chapter Ten focuses on Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, and Pakistan and identifies four primary effects of internet usage across these states: (1) increasing consumption and production of political information; (2) the development of independent public opinion; (3) the growth of civil society; and (4) increasing political involvement of women. Chapter Eleven examines the implications of internet usage in China, finding that Chinese internet users are voracious consumers of political information, that internet usage increases internal and external evaluations of efficacy and, perhaps surprising from a Western perspective, that many citizens are satisfied with China’s level of democratization. The conclusion weaves findings together into a more coherent narrative about enduring, cross-national, positive impacts of internet usage, while also acknowledging where and how country context shaped findings.
Across the volume, the most consistent finding is the positive impact of internet usage on political involvement in most countries. Findings also demonstrate the global relevance of political interest: as previous research in Western countries has suggested, political interest drives internet usage, but internet usage also independently drives political interest. Several chapters also make clear that not everyone who learns about politics online intended to do so. This “byproduct learning,” also occurs with other media such as television. Online, for example, it occurs as people browse sites like YouTube or have online discussions with friends in which political information emerges. Several chapters argue that internet usage increases byproduct learning, potentially drawing new actors into politics and developing political interest in the previously uninterested.
Results on political attitudes were more mixed. Efficacy, both as an independent and dependent variable, was the most often examined attitude. Chapter Four finds no effect of efficacy on political participation, but other chapters show that in the EU and China, internet usage increases efficacy.
Chapters suggest a number of ways that internet usage may increase political participation. First, internet usage may increase political interest and, to a lesser extent, internal and/or external efficacy, which in turn are thought to increase political participation. These represent indirect effects of internet usage. Second, internet usage may independently increase participation by: (1) reducing the costs of action, which directly encourages participation; (2) facilitating the use of more horizontal political structures, which may facilitate more grassroots efforts; and (3) making new forms of political engagement available (e.g., political consumerism), which may pull new actors into participating.
Two final themes that run through chapters merit mention: most chapters attend, at least at a theoretical level, to digital divides. However, results do not show dramatic effects of such divides on political involvement and instead suggest that some online engagement is still better than none. Several chapters also implicitly, if not explicitly, comment on the long simmering debate in political communication over media’s reinforcement versus mobilization effects. Results support both effects: new participants are pulled into politics, but those with existing political interest also respond positively to internet usage.
In terms of concerns or criticisms, I think there are very few. The volume’s theoretical concerns and much of the cited literature are drawn from political communication research from political science and communication. While some may see the disconnect with relevant sociological research as problematic, the volume provides a quick introduction for sociologists interested in understanding these debates from a political communications perspective while also delivering interesting findings and expanding research across the globe. The quality and clarity of chapters also varies, but not enough to distract from the overall high quality of the volume and the interesting array of international findings.