Abstract
By analysing who are engaged online and how they engage, Digital Media and Political Engagement Worldwide moves beyond reinforcement versus mobilization debates and contributes to a new understanding of the impact of digital media on political engagement. Jensen, Jorba and Anduiza argue that the emergence of new forms of political participation outside the institutionalized and representative modes of participation has been greatly facilitated by digital media. The book examines both the direct and indirect impact of digital media on political participation. In order to provide a comprehensive understanding of the effects of digital media in precipitating political engagement, the editors of the book propose to analyse the contextual features of a political system and identify three contextual variables: the digital divide (in terms of internet access, use and competence), the media system (open or closed media systems), and the institutional setting (laws regarding political speech, internet regulation, etc.). However, in order to find the variations and interrelated effects of these contextual elements, all chapters in the book proceed in a case-centred, rather than a variable-centred, manner.
The book is organized into 11 chapters, excluding the introduction and the conclusion. Many of the contributors to the volume are leading scholars in their field. In their theoretical essay, Jorba and Bimber explore the changes in the character of citizenship caused by digital media. Thus, they move away from the existing research on digital media that has largely focused on its role in civic engagement (in the case of democratic systems) and the issue of censorship (in the case of authoritarian regimes). While providing a critical survey of the existing literature on digital media, Jorba and Bimber develop a framework consisting of five issues (political attitudes, political practices, sociality of politics, political voice and transnational allegiance) to understand the emerging citizenship practices across democratic and non-democratic systems. They argue that the digital media are suited to the changing practices of citizenship that ‘allow for richer and more diverse forms of communication and participation than it does with mass media’ (p. 37).
Chadwick’s essay analyses the role of the internet in promoting political knowledge and political engagement in the United States and Britain. He argues for moving away from the old framework of engagement, participation and deliberative democracy in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of the likely effects of transformations in the online environment. He highlights three key forces, namely, granularity, informational exuberance, and by-product political learning, which are playing a vital role in the transformation of the nature of politics mediated through digital media.
By using panel survey data of the 2008 US Presidential elections, Hamilton and Tolbert demonstrate the accidental mobilization of voters with little interest in politics through the internet. They show that increased use of the internet does lead to higher levels of political interest. Their findings reinforce the hypothesis that internet use for political information can mobilize new participants in politics and that it can also lead to offline political participation such as voting.
In a comparative study of the United States and Spain, Jensen and Anduiza highlight the role of the political, cultural and technological environments of a country in enabling both online and offline political participation. They found that the level of access to the internet and one’s level of internet skills are more important determinants of online political participation in Spain, as compared to the United States, where ‘participation appears to emerge from one’s ideational engagement with politics’ (p. 97).
Colombo, Galais and Gallego’s essay explores the ways in which the use of the internet conditions political attitudes in Europe and Spain. They show that the feeling of internal political efficacy has a strong impact on one’s political involvement. In another study of Spain, Cantijoch shows that internet users are more likely to get involved in extra-representational modes of participation, such as political protest and consumer action. By introducing a more differentiated view of citizens’ role than the active/inactive distinction, Cantijoch’s findings have important implications for the debates on digital politics that have largely swirled around the simple binary of reinforcement versus mobilization.
Vaccari, through a survey of voting-age population in Italy, also demonstrates the complexity of online political engagement and internal differentiation in online participation. In line with earlier studies, he shows that socio-demographic factors, such as gender, age and education, influence online participation. Similarly, ideologically left-oriented citizens are more active online, which is attributed to the dominance of the centre-right in the mainstream media. What is interesting to note is that those who participate in online political activities are different from offline participants, with few crossing the fence between the two worlds.
By using annual panel data on internet access and political engagement in Germany, Kroh and Neiss report a positive correlation between the two. However, this positive correlation is largely restricted to politically active people since they obtain internet access earlier and at a higher rate than demobilized individuals.
The remaining three chapters deal with cases outside the United States and Europe. In their study of five Latin American countries, Welp and Wheatley find that complex interactions between internet diffusion, certain demographic factors, and the degree of political institutionalization produce divergent outcomes depending on how digital media are used. Hussain and Howard’s chapter analyses the transformation of the patterns of political communications in four Muslim majority countries: Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The chapter discusses the contestation in the emerging digital media space between the authoritarian regimes that use information infrastructure for social control and the civil society groups that use digital media to consolidate their organizational capacity. Although the levels of internet use are quite low in these countries, people who are online are ‘politically significant’ (p. 216). The authors argue that digital media is also leading to a change in gender politics since the internet is ‘allowing citizens to learn about the status of women and gender relations in other countries’ (p. 216).
The final chapter by Tang, Jorba and Jensen explores the relationship between digital media and political attitudes in China and demonstrates that most internet users are critical of the existing regime and express high levels of political efficacy. The authors thus believe that digital spaces have the potential to play a vital role in the ‘formation of political networks pushing for change’ (p. 238).
While the cases studied in this book amply demonstrate the positive impact of digital media on political engagement, they also highlight various nuances that inform emerging digital politics in different parts of the world. The main hypothesis of the editors that contextual factors play an important role in shaping digital politics finds support across the 15 cases. Overall, the book is a welcome addition to the growing literature on digital politics and would be useful for scholars of political communication, media studies and comparative politics, as well as for media professionals and policymakers.