scholarly journals Predicting online participation through Bayesian network analysis

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e0261663
Author(s):  
Elizaveta Kopacheva

Despite the fact that preconditions of political participation were thoroughly examined before, there is still not enough understanding of which factors directly affect political participation and which factors correlate with participation due to common background variables. This article scrutinises the causal relations between the variables associated with participation in online activism and introduces a three-step approach in learning a reliable structure of the participation preconditions’ network to predict political participation. Using Bayesian network analysis and structural equation modeling to stabilise the structure of the causal relations, the analysis showed that only age, political interest, internal political efficacy and no other factors, highlighted by the previous political participation research, have direct effects on participation in online activism. Moreover, the direct effect of political interest is mediated by the indirect effects of internal political efficacy and age via political interest. After fitting the parameters of the Bayesian network dependent on the received structure, it became evident that given prior knowledge of the explanatory factors that proved to be most important in terms of direct effects, the predictive performance of the model increases significantly. Despite this fact, there is still uncertainty when it comes to predicting online participation. This result suggests that there remains a lot to be done in participation research when it comes to identifying and distinguishing factors that stimulate new types of political activities.

Author(s):  
Vassilis Pavlopoulos ◽  
Dimitra Kostoglou ◽  
Frosso Motti-Stefanidi

European youth’s civic engagement and political participation in EU-related issues is a timely imperative. Research findings on youth citizenship range from political apathy to alternative forms of participation, although theoretical evidence remains poor. This study is based on empirical data from the Greek contribution to the European program CATCH-EyoU (Horizon 2020), aiming to explore different forms and predictors of youth’s civic engagement and political participation on EU-related issues. Based on social psychological theoretical background, we assumed that the expressed political interest for the EU translates to specific forms of action. Identification with the EU and perceived political efficacy/alienation were expected to mediate the above relationship. The sample consisted of 749 young adults aged 18-27 (M = 22.2, 50.7% women, 89.7% Greek citizens, 72% university students, 75.5% employed). In addition to voting, four components of political participation and civic engagement were studied, namely conventional participation (in support of political parties and goals), activism (acts of protest against the authorities), online participation (social networks), and volunteering (non-profit actions). Mediation analyses showed that the relationship between political interest and participation can be explained by different mechanisms: The sense of belonging in the EU lead to more frequent electoral participation, but to less activism and online participation. On the contrary, EU identity exploration and reconsideration contributed to increased conventional participation. Political efficacy seemed to promote activism and online participation, while political alienation tended to decrease activism. These findings reveal the multiple connotations of youth’s politicalparticipation regarding EU issues.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1342-1361
Author(s):  
Francis Dalisay ◽  
Matthew J. Kushin ◽  
Masahiro Yamamoto

In this chapter, we expand the idea that conflict avoidance (CA) inhibits online political participation. We specifically propose that CA has a direct negative link with traditional online political participation and online political expression, and an indirect negative link with these two forms of participation when mediated by political interest and internal political efficacy. We test our propositions through analyzing data from a survey of young adult college students residing in a battleground state in the U.S. Midwest conducted during the weeks prior to the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Our results showed that CA has a direct negative association with both traditional online political participation and online political expression. CA also has a negative relationship with political interest and internal political efficacy, which in turn, are positively linked with traditional online political participation and online political expression. We discussed implications.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Bossetta ◽  
Anamaria Dutceac Segesten ◽  
Hans-Jörg Trenz

Abstract This study investigates, over an 18-month period surrounding the 2016 Brexit referendum, the commenting activity of nearly 2 million Facebook users engaging with political news from British media or with the posts of referendum campaigns. We ask whether citizens’ engagement with political news on Facebook motivates their participation with political campaign posts, and we examine whether users commenting on campaign pages trend towards ideologically reinforcing media. Overall, we find comparatively low levels of commenting activity on the official referendum campaigns vis-à-vis the media, and the majority of users (70%) commented only once. Looking at the subset of users commenting on both page types (“cross-posters”), we identify a general spillover effect from media to campaign pages, suggesting a positive correlation between political interest and online participation on Facebook. Reverse spillover occurs immediately around and after the vote, with Remain cross-posters active on the Guardian while Leave cross-posters’ media engagement registers as more diffuse.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Oosterhoff ◽  
Lauren Alvis

Political involvement is accompanied by a range of positive and negative emotional experiences, including stress, sadness, anger, regret, purpose, and empowerment. These experiences may be especially potent during adolescence when youth are forming political opinions and are becoming more integrated within the political system. Little research has examined adolescents’ political emotional experiences and how these experiences are connected with concordant and future political engagement. Using an ecological momentary assessment design, this study tested cross-sectional and longitudinal within-day associations between adolescents’ political emotional costs and benefits and political engagement. Participants (N=291, Mage=16.09) completed four assessments of political emotional experiences (stress/sadness, anger, regret, empowerment) and multiple forms of political engagement (intent to protest, intent to vote, political interest, political efficacy, political participation) across one day. Greater political empowerment was cross-sectionally associated with all forms of political engagement and longitudinally associated with greater next-moment intent to vote and protest, political interest, and political efficacy. Greater political anger was associated with greater cross-sectional political interest, political efficacy, and political participation, but lower next-moment political efficacy. Greater political regret was associated with lower cross-sectional political efficacy and political interest and greater political stress/sadness was associated with greater cross-sectional intent to vote. Findings emphasize the importance of empowerment for adolescent political engagement and demonstrate nuanced connections between adolescents’ and subsequent involvement.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Reichert

This study presents evidence for the mediation effect of political knowledge through political self-efficacy (i.e. internal political efficacy) in the prediction of political participation. It employs an action theoretic approach—by and large grounded on the Theory of Planned Behaviour—and uses data from the German Longitudinal Election Study to examine whether political knowledge has distinct direct effects on voting, conventional, and/or unconventional political participation. It argues that political knowledge raises internal political efficacy and thereby indirectly increases the chance that a citizen will participate in politics. The results of mediated multiple regression analyses yield evidence that political knowledge indeed translates into internal political efficacy, thus it affects political participation of various kinds indirectly. However, internal political efficacy and intentions to participate politically yield simultaneous direct effects only on conventional political participation. Sequentially mediated effects appear for voting and conventional political participation, with political knowledge being mediated by internal political efficacy and subsequently also by behavioural intentions. The mediation patterns for unconventional political participation are less clear though. The discussion accounts for restrictions of this study and points to questions for answer by future research.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Dalisay ◽  
Matthew J. Kushin ◽  
Masahiro Yamamoto

This study extends understanding of conflict avoidance's (CA) potential of inhibiting online political participation. Specifically, the authors examine whether CA has a direct negative relationship with traditional online political participation and online political expression, and an indirect negative relationship with these two forms of participation as mediated by political interest and internal political efficacy. A survey of young adult college students living in a U.S. Midwestern battleground state was conducted weeks prior to the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Results showed that CA has a direct negative relationship with both traditional online political participation and online political expression. Also, CA is negatively associated with political interest and internal political efficacy, which in turn, are positively associated with traditional online political participation and online political expression. Implications are discussed.


Author(s):  
Francis Dalisay ◽  
Matthew J. Kushin ◽  
Masahiro Yamamoto

In this chapter, we expand the idea that conflict avoidance (CA) inhibits online political participation. We specifically propose that CA has a direct negative link with traditional online political participation and online political expression, and an indirect negative link with these two forms of participation when mediated by political interest and internal political efficacy. We test our propositions through analyzing data from a survey of young adult college students residing in a battleground state in the U.S. Midwest conducted during the weeks prior to the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Our results showed that CA has a direct negative association with both traditional online political participation and online political expression. CA also has a negative relationship with political interest and internal political efficacy, which in turn, are positively linked with traditional online political participation and online political expression. We discussed implications.


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