Updating citizenship? The effects of digital media use on citizenship understanding and political participation

ABSTRACT

Is there a connection between increased use of digital media and changing patterns of political participation? This study tests how the use of online media for different purposes (social interaction, creative expression, online news use, social media news use) is related to three types of political participation. It examines whether mobilizing effects are partly indirect due to different understandings of citizenship (dutiful, optional, individual, collective) that may be fostered by digital media use. The study is based on a survey of a sample of the Danish population (n = 1322), including data from two online survey waves and a smartphone-based media diary that documents respondents’ social media use. Results indicate support for a new pathway to participation, but the relationship depends on whether citizens are socialized in a digital media environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• political participation
• citizenship
• civic norms
• digital natives

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Jakob Ohme is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Journalism at the University of Southern Denmark. He recently finished his dissertation titled, New Media, New Citizens? How media exposure in a digital age shapes political participation’. In his research, he explores digital media effects on political participation and democratic citizenship. His work is concerned with the development of innovative exposure measurements that address evolving media use contexts in a digital age.

Notes

1 Of the 13,700 people, 1700 were also recruited via the pollster’s database.

2 Goodness-of-fit tests were used to test for sample differences between the original sample (N = 9125) and study participants (n = 1322) regarding gender (n.s.) income (>0.53, p < .001, Min = 1, Max = 18), age (>2.2 years, p < .001), political interest (>0.5, p < .001, Min = 0, Max = 10), mobile Internet use (>5.7%, p < .001) and social media use (n.s.).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Syddansk Universitet.