Does Internet use provide a deeper sense of political empowerment to the Less Educated?

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn politics, there is an offline power imbalance between the Educated and the Less Educated caused, in part, by the fact that those individuals with more extensive levels of education are more equipped to influence the political process. This study analyses the impact of Internet use on this imbalance and investigates whether the disparity remains intact in the Digital Age. Accessibility to the Internet is somewhat agnostic to one’s education and may be a quick and cost-effective tool to affect the political process. This study employs the concept of online political efficacy (OPE), which is likely to impact online political participation (OPP), to test whether Internet use provokes a sense of political effectiveness in the less educated to a greater extent than those more educated. Internet Service Types, particularly social media, were found to be positively associated with OPE to a much greater extent among the less educated. These findings indicate that, as a result of an enhanced positive perception of the Internet from using the Internet Service Types, the less educated are likely to feel empowered to affect the political process to a greater degree than the educated. Such use, in turn, is more likely to lead the less educated to OPP. This flow in the context of Internet use and education levels was presented in the framework of the O-S-R-O-R model of communication effects. As such, Internet use has the potential to contribute toward an equalization of the offline power imbalance.