Social Networks that Matter: Exploring the Role of Political Discussion for Online Political Participation

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Valenzuela ◽  
Y. Kim ◽  
H. Gil de Zuniga
2020 ◽  
pp. 318-335
Author(s):  
Herbert Kitschelt ◽  
Philipp Rehm

This chapter examines four fundamental questions relating to political participation. First, it considers different modes of political participation such as social movements, interest groups, and political parties. Second, it analyses the determinants of political participation, focusing in particular on the paradox of collective action. Third, it explains political participation at the macro-level in order to identify which contextual conditions are conducive to participation and the role of economic affluence in political participation. Finally, the chapter discusses political participation at the micro-level. It shows that both formal associations and informal social networks, configured around family and friendship ties, supplement individual capacities to engage in political participation or compensate for weak capacities, so as to boost an individual’s probability to become politically active.


Author(s):  
Herbert Kitschelt ◽  
Philipp Rehm

This chapter examines four fundamental questions relating to political participation. First, it considers different modes of political participation such as social movements, interest groups, and political parties. Second, it analyses the determinants of political participation, focusing in particular on the paradox of collective action. Third, it explains political participation at the macro-level in order to identify which contextual conditions are conducive to participation and the role of economic affluence in political participation. Finally, the chapter discusses political participation at the micro-level. It shows that both formal associations and informal social networks, configured around family and friendship ties, supplement individual capacities to engage in political participation or compensate for weak capacities, so as to boost an individual's probability to become politically active.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Matthes ◽  
Franziska Marquart ◽  
Christian von Sikorski

AbstractWe test the role of like-minded and cross-cutting political discussion as a facilitator of online and offline political participation and examine the role of strong versus weak network ties. Most prior research on the topic has employed cross-sectional designs that may lead to spurious relationships due to the lack of controlled variables. The findings of a two-wave panel survey controlling the autoregressive effects suggest that cross-cutting talk with weak ties significantly dampens online but not offline political participation. However, no such effects were detectable for cross-cutting talk with strong ties. In addition, we found no effect of discussions involving like-minded individuals in either weak or strong network connections on online and offline forms of political engagement. Implications are discussed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 2070-2090 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masahiro Yamamoto ◽  
Seungahn Nah

This study, derived from a differential gains model, examines how mobile-based political information seeking is associated with offline and online political participation in interaction with three political discussion features: frequency, size, and heterogeneity. Data from a Web survey of an online panel indicate that the link between mobile information seeking and offline and online political participation is greater for respondents who discuss politics with others face to face and online more frequently and a greater diversity of others face to face and online.


Author(s):  
Pedro Pereira Neto ◽  
Claudia Lamy

The most recent technologies of production, transmission, and access to information have made it possible, under appropriate conditions, to change the visibility of national and international concerns, as well as the protest movements many helped stimulate. Different countries have been faced with a multiplicity of movements articulated online that surpass virtual world barriers and (re) assume presence on the streets. In this chapter, drawing from several examples with different claim bases, authors discuss virtual social networks' role in political participation. However, as it happens in so many initiatives in this field, this is not affirmed from an underestimation of the role of Traditional Means of Communication or that of the trenches in the access and use of digital means.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janroj Yılmaz Keles

The Internet and its applications, such as social media, have revolutionized the way stateless diasporas communicate transnationally. This new virtual, deterritorialized conversation between diasporic individuals contributes to building (digital) social networks which constitute resources and opportunities for diasporas, central to social and geographical mobility. This paper explores the role of the Internet in connecting diasporas without a home nation-state, encouraging subordinated people to participate in civic society and creating a collective source of digital social capital in the diaspora. I argue that the Internet, particularly social media, contributes to the growth of social networks, social capital and the community’s cultural and political participation within and across nation-state borders.


2019 ◽  
pp. 089443931986590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Heger ◽  
Christian P. Hoffmann

Despite initial hopes for more egalitarian access to democracy, research has shown that political participation on the Internet remains as stratified as its offline counterpart. Gender is among the characteristics affecting an individual’s degree of political engagement on the Internet—even when controlling for socioeconomic status. To explain this gender divide, it is necessary to go beyond purely resource-based perspectives. Social cognitive theory allows for an analysis of how environmental factors shape cognitions, such as political efficacy, which, in turn, foster political participation. Political efficacy has been shown to be lower among women compared to men. This study explores determinants of gendered online political participation (OPP) by analyzing how self-efficacy mediates the effect of newly developed measures of three different waves of feminist attitudes on OPP. Based on a survey of 1,078 Internet users in Germany, 70% of them women, we analyze the effects of feminism on political efficacy and participation. Feminism is associated with higher internal political efficacy. Also, some feminist paradigms are shown to empower women to participate politically online. This effect, however, is not mediated through efficacy. This finding sheds light on opportunities to foster women’s political participation.


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