scholarly journals Do Facebook and video games promote political participation among youth? Evidence from Singapore

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marko M Skoric ◽  
Grace Kwan

The importance of cultivating political engagement among youth has been widely discussed and its value for a well-functioning democratic society reaffirmed by numerous scholars. This study seeks to understand the relationship between the use of emerging platforms for online sociability and entertainment and political participation among young Singaporeans. Specifically, we focus on the intensity of Facebook use and frequency of video gaming, as well as more specific civic activities taking place on these platforms. The findings indicate that the intensity of Facebook use is related to both online and traditional political participation, while civic gaming is associated with online participation only. There is also evidence linking membership in civic/political Facebook groups with increased online participation. Lastly, although the results suggest that online participation may be an important driver of traditional political participation, the role of traditional media, particularly newspapers, should not be easily dismissed.

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 585-610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Giugni ◽  
Maria Grasso

This article investigates the nature of the relationship between associational involvement and migrant political participation. We explore the extent to which empirical evidence supports the mechanisms proposed by four popular theories in the political participation literature: social capital, group consciousness, civic voluntarism, and mobilization theory. To do so, we employ a mediation-effect approach with data from random samples of migrants in four European cities. Our results show that associational membership mainly operates through a direct effect stressing organizations’ role as agents of mobilization and that associational membership and the links that migrants forge in these associations are crucial for their political engagement. The evidence presented shows that the mobilizing role of voluntary associations — not their role in developing trust, furthering group identity, or providing skills — remains the key to understanding why such organizations spur migrant political participation.


Animation ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 83-95
Author(s):  
Raz Greenberg

Produced throughout the 1980s using the company’s Adventure Game Interpreter engine, the digital adventure games created by American software publisher Sierra On-Line played an important and largely overlooked role in the development of animation as an integral part of the digital gaming experience. While the little historical and theoretical discussion of the company’s games of the era focuses on their genre, it ignores these games’ contribution to the relationship between the animated avatars and the gamers that control them – a relationship that, as argued in this article, in essence turns gamers into animators. If we consider Chris Pallant’s (2019) argument in ‘Video games and animation’ that animation is essential to the sense of immersion within a digital game, then the great freedom provided to the gamers in animating their avatars within Sierra On-Line’s adventure games paved the way to the same sense of immersion in digital. And, if we refer to Gonzalo Frasca’s (1999) divide of digital games to narrative-led or free-play (ludus versus paidea) in ‘Ludology meets narratology: Similitude and differences between (video) games and narrative’, then the company’s adventure games served as an important early example of balance between the two elements through the gamers’ ability to animate their avatars. Furthermore, Sierra On-Line’s adventure games have tapped into the traditional tension between the animator and the character it animated, as observed by Scott Bukatman in ‘The poetics of Slumberland: Animated spirits and the animated spirit (2012), when he challenged the traditional divide between animators, the characters they animate and the audience. All these contributions, as this articles aims to demonstrate, continue to influence the role of animation in digital games to this very day.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-57
Author(s):  
Abdul Paliwala

AbstractThis is the edited transcript of a seminar on 27 February 2020 organised at Warwick Law School in appreciation of the work of Peter Fitzpatrick. Peter was seriously ill at the time but was desirous of online participation. Sadly, the seminar was the last public performance by Peter prior to his death. A variety of themes in Peter's work are discussed, including his critique of H.L.A. Hart, his notion of ‘slow reading’, the relationship between theory and grounded engagement with people, the idea of community and relationality, the role of the critic, self-criticism, the impossibility of law, decoloniality, occidentalism, mythologies and governmentality, and the significance of narratives.


Author(s):  
Deana A. Rohlinger

The purpose of this chapter is to offer a critical review of the sociological literature on political participation and, in doing so, to underscore the importance of power dynamics to understanding political engagement in the digital age. The author argues that the focus on social movements, the organizations that animate them, and the conditions under which they emerge and decline made it difficult for sociologists to incorporate digital media into their theorizing. A key problem in this regard is that sociologists have not done a good job of accounting for the ability of individuals and small groups to use technologies to advocate for political change. One way for sociologists to rebalance their theoretical and empirical efforts is to think more critically about the relationship between structure and agency and how this might (dis)empower individuals and groups. The author illustrates the utility of this approach by, first, outlining how power shapes whether and how an individual gets politically involved and, then, discussing how power influences the form a group takes as well as its influence in political processes. The chapter concludes with a discussion of directions for future research.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Anduiza ◽  
Marc Guinjoan ◽  
Guillem Rico

AbstractThis article analyses the relationship between populist attitudes and political participation. We argue that populist attitudes can be a motivation for participation through their identity, emotional, and moral components, and that they have the potential to narrow socioeconomic gaps in participation. Using survey data from nine European countries, our results show that populist attitudes are positively related to expressive non-institutionalized modes of participation (petition signing, online participation and, in some contexts, demonstrating), but not to turnout. In addition, populist attitudes are found to reduce education-based gaps and even reverse income-based inequalities in political participation. The implications of these findings are discussed.


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.


Author(s):  
Melissa R. Gotlieb ◽  
Chris Wells

Young citizens are increasingly seeking fulfillment in expressive modes of political participation, and scholars have begun to examine the implications of this trend for engagement in formal politics. While some argue that expressive practices are “crowding out” participation in more conventional civic activities, others more optimistically contend that they have expanded the political repertoires of young citizens, affording them with more opportunities to be engaged. The authors add clarity to this debate by specifying the conditions under which engagement in one particular form of expressive politics, political consumerism, is associated with conventional participation. An analysis of survey data shows that identification with other political consumers significantly enhances the relationship between political consumerism and traditional political engagement, particularly among younger generations of Americans. The authors argue that engaging in political consumerism alongside others provides an important opportunity for young citizens to develop the civic competencies necessary for engagement in the formal political sphere.


2021 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Biolcati ◽  
Stefano Passini ◽  
Virginia Pupi

The main aim of this study is to improve our knowledge on Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD), contributing to a common discourse concerning its risk profiles. Specifically, the study aims to assess the prevalence of addicted gamers among Italian online and offline gamers, accounting for gender and to investigate the mediation role of gaming motives on the relationship between personality risk traits and IGD. A total of 627 videogame players (55% women; mean age 27 years) recruited from social networking sites took part in the study and filled a questionnaire including gaming characteristics, the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale (IGDS9-SF), the Substance Use Risk Profile Scale (SURPS) and the Motives for Online Gaming Questionnaire (MOGQ). The prevalence rate of Internet gaming disorder was 5.3%. Hopelessness was the personality dimension that most differentiates gaming addicts from non-addicts. Results of the mediation model suggested that Hopelessness was both directly and indirectly (via escape, fantasy and recreational motives) associated with IGD. The motivations Escape and Fantasy also mediate between Anxiety sensitivity and IGD while Competition mediate between Sensation seeking trait and IGD. The evidence suggests that IGD is motivated by psychological mechanisms similar to those compelling substance abuse, but with its own unique features.RésuméCette étude a pour but d’améliorer notre connaissance de la dépendance au jeu sur Internet (DJI) afin d’enrichir le discours sur ses profils de risque. Elle vise plus précisément à évaluer la prévalence des joueurs dépendants parmi les joueurs italiens en ligne et hors ligne, en tenant compte du genre et en examinant le rôle de médiation des raisons qui motivent la pratique des jeux dans la relation entre les traits de personnalité présentant des risques et la DJI. En tout, 627 joueurs de jeux vidéo (55 % de femmes d’une moyenne d’âge de 27 ans) recrutés sur des sites de réseaux sociaux ont participé à l’étude et rempli un questionnaire comprenant des caractéristiques liées au jeu, l’échelle de la dépendance au jeu sur Internet (IGDS9-SF), l’échelle de profil de risque de consommation de substances psychoactives (SURPS) et le questionnaire sur les raisons de jouer en ligne (MOGQ). Le taux de prévalence de la dépendance au jeu sur Internet s’établissait à 5,3 %. Le désespoir constituait l’aspect de la personnalité qui distinguait le plus les personnes dépendantes au jeu des personnes non dépendantes. Les résultats du modèle de médiation donnaient à penser que le désespoir était associé directement et indirectement (raisons liées à la fuite, à l’imaginaire et aux loisirs) à la DJI. Les raisons Fuite et Imaginaire assurent la médiation entre la sensibilité à l’anxiété et la DJI, tandis que la concurrence assure la médiation entre la recherche de sensations et la DJI. Tout indique que la DJI est motivée par des mécanismes psychologiques similaires à ceux qui incitent à la toxicomanie, mais possède ses propres caractéristiques.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theofilos Gkinopoulos ◽  
Silvia Mari

Conspiracy theories often concern political and milestone social events, mobilizing various explanations or actions. However, there is a still emerging research on how conspiracy theories mobilize normative and non-normative collective action, as well as political engagement. Furthermore, questions to be explored relate to emotional underpinnings of the consequential aspect of conspiracy theories. In our paper, we conducted two studies on exploring the relationship between exposure to conspiracy theories and normative, non-normative collective action and political engagement, moderated by primed victimhood and mediated by fear/anxiety and anger emotional indices. In two studies, we established the effect of exposure to conspiracy theories on normative, non-normative collection and political engagement, as well as the emotional valence following exposure to conspiracy or non-conspiracy scenarios. We also found a significant interaction between exposure to conspiracy theories and primed victimhood on normative, non-normative collective action and political engagement. Finally, fear/anxiety and anger indices mediated the moderation effect of the interaction between exposure to conspiracy theories and primed victimhood on the aforementioned dependent variables. Results are discussed in light of the broader impact of circulation of conspiracy theories and their effective tackle amidst societal traumas.


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