The relationship between online political participation and privacy protection: evidence from 10 Asian societies of different levels of cybersecurity

ABSTRACT

Information disclosure during online political activities can place participants under the threat of personal data leakage and misuse, but privacy protection in the context of online political participation has rarely been studied. This study examined how online political participation is related to privacy protection behaviours. Using survey data of internet users from 10 Asian societies, our study suggests two important findings. First, online political participation was found to be positively related to privacy protection behaviours. Second, we examined whether such a positive association can be explained by two mediators: perceived privacy risk and internet efficacy, in countries of different cybersecurity capacity. Our data suggest that internet efficacy mediates the relationship between online political participation and privacy protection behaviours across countries with different levels of cybersecurity capacity, while perceived privacy risk only mediates the effects of online political participation on privacy protection behaviours in countries of low cybersecurity capacity.

KEYWORDS:

• Internet use
• political participation
• privacy
• cybersecurity
• cross-nation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by Google Faculty Research Award.