Meta-analysis of the relationship between Internet use and political participation: examining main and moderating effects

ABSTRACT

Although a growing number of studies are examining the relationship between Internet use and political participation, varying study characteristics make the overall effect size difficult to estimate. Using a meta-analysis, we estimated the mean effect size and tested whether the effect size was influenced by study characteristics. Data for this meta-analysis were derived from 56 papers reporting 63 independent studies. Results revealed that Internet use had a weak relationship with political participation (r_c = .22). Moderator analyses demonstrated that type of Internet use, Internet use measure, Internet use for news, type of political participation, sample origin, and survey year significantly moderated the relationship between Internet use and political participation. For instance, Internet use including news (r_c = .27) had a significantly stronger relationship with political participation than did Internet use excluding news (r_c = .19). European samples (r_c = .27) had the largest mean correlation followed by North American samples (r_c = .23) and Asian samples (r_c = .18) in decreasing order of strength of relationship. The theoretical and methodological implications of the findings are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Internet use
• political participation
• meta-analysis
• moderator analysis
• social media
• sample origin

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Younggil Chae is an associate professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies at Seoul, Korea. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Communication from University of Texas at Austin. His current research interests focus on areas in community media, global communication, and journalism studies. His research paper appears in a wide variety of both international and national journals including International Journal of Communication, Cyberpsychology Behavior & Social Networking, Korean Journal of Broadcasting and Telecommunication Studies, and Korean Journal of Journalism and Communication Studies.

Sookjung Lee is an associate professor at Chung-Ang University at Seoul, Korea. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Communication from University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests are in the impact of information and communication technology, children and youth media use, and research methods. She has published in New Media & Society, Cyberpsychology Behavior & Social Networking, and Children and Youth Services Review.

Yeolib Kim is an assistant professor at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, School of Business Administration. He has a Ph.D. in Information Studies from The University of Texas at Austin. His research interests are in adoption of information and communication technology, e-commerce, and research methods. He has published in Journal of Applied Psychology, Computers in Human Behavior, Internet Research, Asian Journal of Communication, and Health Informatics Journal.