Technical Skills Required: How Technological Efficacy Influences Online Political Behavior

Abstract

Rapid advances in technology have provided the potential to connect citizens to their surroundings in unprecedented ways. While many scholars examine different types of efficacy as a predictor of behavior (e.g., internal, external, and political), it is essential to examine how confident citizens feel in their ability to use the technology before understanding how they will use it politically. Research shows that perceived competence increases motivation, which is correlated with behavior. This study examined how traditional measures of efficacy and a new measure affect online political behaviors, concluding that technological efficacy is a reliable construct predicting online news use and expression.

Funding

This study was made possible by funding from University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

Notes

1. The response rate estimates the fraction of the entire eligible sample ultimately interviewed and was calculated by taking the product of three component rates: Contact rate—the proportion of working numbers where a request for interview was made five; Cooperation rate—the proportion of contacted numbers where a consent for interview was at least initially obtained, versus those refused; and Completion rate—the proportion of initially cooperating and eligible interviews that were completed. Thus, the response rate for the landline pre-election sample (September, 2010) was 16, and the response rate for the cellular pre-election samples was 18 percent. The response rate for the follow-up landline post-election sample was 56 percent (November, 2010), and the response rate for the post-election cell phone sample was 48 percent. Ad-hoc analyses of the post-election data reveal that older residents were more likely to respond to the follow-up interview and, non-Hispanic whites were more likely to respond to the follow-up interviews than racial minorities. More information is available from the authors upon request.

2. Because the sample is based on those who self-selected into the panel rather than a probability sample, no estimates of sampling error can be calculated. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to multiple sources of error, including, but not limited to sampling error, coverage error, and measurement error.

3. Items 1, 2, and 3 were adapted from Lin (2006), which were worded: “I feel confident finding information through participation in in virtual communities”; “I feel confident exchanging information with other members of virtual communities”; and a combination of “I feel confident downloading files from the virtual community” with “I feel confident uploading files to the virtual community.”

4. Items 4 and 5 were adapted from Eastin and LaRose (2000), which were worded: “I feel confident understanding terms/words relating to Internet hardware” and “relating to Internet software.” Item 6 is the same wording as in Eastin and LaRose (2000).

5. Item 7 was developed by the first author and Item 8 derived from Eastin and LaRose (2000), which was worded: “turning to an on-line discussion group when help is needed.”

6. The authors note this model is not a perfect fit as the RMSEA could be considered mediocre fit.

7. Each model included the eight original technological efficacy items, as well as four political efficacy items (two political efficacy items were removed from the original 6 because of poor fit).

8. The correlation between communicating via SNSs and posting comments was r = 0.17, which does not indicate a problem with multicollinearity. All Tolerance and VIF statistics can be found in the tables.

Additional information

Funding

This study was made possible by funding from University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Lindsay H. Hoffman

Lindsay H. Hoffman (Ph.D., The Ohio State University) is associate professor of Communication and the associate director of the Center for Political Communication at the University of Delaware. Her research interests include technology and politics; public opinion; and political communication.

Amanda L. Schechter

Amanda L. Schechter (B.A., University of Delaware) is a chief of staff at The Advisory Board Company in Washington, D.C. She works to ensure that employees are operating at top of license to deliver value to hospitals and health systems across the world.