![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
In an earlier study, we examined the relationship between digital media use and six acts of political participation in the United States between 1996 and 2008. We found that digital media use was associated with participation more broadly in 2008 than in preceding years and concluded with a question about whether the relationship between digital media use and behavior might be strengthening over time. Here we add 2012 data to address that question. The extended time series, from 1996 to 2012, reinforced our main findings: (1) the relationship between digital media use and behavior exhibits highly idiosyncratic variation over time; and (2) political talk constitutes an exception because of its consistent and positive relationship with seeking political information online.
Notes
1. To measure whether people used digital media for political information, we utilized the following question from the ANES: “Did you read, watch, or listen to any information about the campaign for president on the Internet?” Although the ANES measure of digital media use for political information has serious limitations, the ANES is the longest time-series data set in existence on this problem in any country, so it provided a unique possibility for examining variation over time. In 2002, the ANES did not include Internet measures, and beginning in 2006, the ANES stopped fielding midterm election studies.
2. In cooperation with Facebook, Bond et al. (Citation2012) randomly assigned all people who accessed the Facebook Web site on Election Day (November 2) 2010 to one of three conditions: text-only exhortation to vote, text exhortation plus social signals about friends’ behavior, and a control with no treatment. This design therefore controlled via random assignment how frequently or intensively people use Facebook.
3. In the logit models, the coefficients show that exposure to political information online significantly increases the likelihood of attending a political event in 1996, 2004, and 2008. However, the differences in the predicted probabilities for 1996 and 2004 are only significant at the p < .10 level.
4. For more information, visit the American National Election Studies 2012 Time Series Study page at http://www.electionstudies.org.
5. As we note below, the well-known overreporting phenomenon in ANES data masks an actual downward trend in voting between 2008 and 2012, from about 62.2% of the voting-age population to roughly 58.7% of the voting-eligible population, respectively.
6. Cronbach’s alpha is as follows: 1996: α = 0.59; 1998: α = 0.54; 2000: α = 0.53; 2004: α = 0.53; 2008: α = 0.62; 2012: α = 0.61.
7. The descriptive statistics for each year are as follows: 1996 (M = 0.61, median = 0 acts, SD = 0.97); 1998 (M = 0.44, median = 0 acts, SD = 0.82); 2000 (M = 0.66, median = 0 acts, SD = 0.93); 2004 (M = 0.97, median = 1 act, SD = 1.10); 2008 (M = 0.90, median = 1 act, SD = 1.13); 2012 (M = 0.77, median = 1 act, SD = 1.04).
8. To measure whether people displayed a political message, the ANES asked: “Did you wear a campaign button, put a campaign sticker on your car, or place a sign in your window or in front of your house?” The question wording for attending a political event was as follows: “Did you go to any political meetings, rallies, speeches, dinners, or things like that in support of a particular candidate?” For working for a political campaign, the ANES asked: “Did you do any (other) work for one of the parties or candidates?” Finally, respondents were asked whether they tried to influence someone’s vote as follows: “We would like to find out about some of the things people do to help a party or a candidate win an election. During the campaign, did you talk to any people and try to show them why they should vote for or against one of the parties or candidates?” (M = 0.40, SD = 0.49).
9. The question wording for these three binary questions was as follows: “During an election year people are often asked to make a contribution to support campaigns. Did you give money to an individual candidate running for public office?” “Did you give money to a political party during this election year?” “Did you give any money to any other group that supported or opposed candidates?” We coded our measure 1 if the respondent answered “yes” to one or more of these questions and 0 if the respondent answered “no” to all three.
10. The question wording was slightly different for 1996–2004, in which the ANES asked: “Have you seen any information about this election campaign on the (Internet/the Web)?” There was also a wording change in 2008, when the measure for seeing political information online changed from a dichotomous variable to a frequency variable.
11. Age was categorized into 12 groups ranging from 0 (“age group 17–20”) to 12 (“age group 75 or older”) (M = 7.01, median = “age group 50–54,” SD = 3.45). Education was measured on a five-point scale ranging from 0 (“less than high school credential”) to 4 (“graduate degree) (M = 1.89, median = “some college,” SD = 1.14). For household income, we used a summary variable that ranged from 1 (“under $5,000”) to 28 (“$250,000 or more”) (M = 14.19, median = $50,000–$54,999, SD = 8.02). Gender was coded 1 for male (48% male). Political interest was tabulated by asking respondents: “How often do you pay attention to what’s going on in government and politics?” The five-point scale ranged from 0 (“never”) to 4 (“always”) (M = 2.31, SD = 0.12). For internal political efficacy, the ANES asked respondents to indicate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: “People like me don’t have any say about what the government does.” The five-point Likert-type scale ranged from 0 (“agree strongly”) to 4 (“disagree strongly”) (M = 2.30, SD = 1.21). Finally, to measure whether political parties tried to mobilize respondents, the ANES asked: “As you know, the political parties try to talk to as many people as they can to get them to vote for their candidate. Did anyone from one of the POLITICAL PARTIES [sic] call you up or come around and talk to you about the campaign this year?” The dichotomous measure was coded 1 for “yes” (M = 0.42, SD = 0.49).
12. Per the ANES’ instructions, we used the weight: “weight_full.”
13. Given the large number of outcomes that remain significant in , we were not concerned about the possibility of Type II error due to the correction.
14. However, the relationship for voting is not significant when we include an interaction term in the model for political interest and digital media use for political information. Political interest is also reduced to nonsignificance. This suggests that exposure to political information online has a greater effect on people who are low in political interest than it does for people who are high in political interest.
15. In 2012, exposure to political information online significantly was associated with an increase in the likelihood of voting among those low in political interest but not for those high in political interest.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Lauren Copeland
Lauren Copeland is affiliated with the Department of Political Science and the Tim Russert Department of Communication & Theatre Arts at John Carroll University. Her research examines how changing values and communication technologies affect political behavior and public opinion.
Bruce Bimber
Bruce Bimber is professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research interests are in political communication, behavior, and collective action.