Abstract
Previous research has observed that media usage influences civic outcomes, including trust and political behavior. However, this research has rarely examined the social psychological mechanisms underlying the relationship between media and civic life. The current study focuses on values as potential explanations for how media usage impacts civic engagement. Using data from Round 5 of the European Social Survey (2010) and employing two-level structural equation modeling, this paper examines whether entertainment TV watching, political TV watching and Internet use are related to civic life outcomes measured by social trust, voting, and non-traditional political participation through two value dimensions: openness to change vs. conservation and self-transcendence vs. self-enhancement. Results showed that media usage was associated with values, which in turn accounted for a small portion of the effects of media on civic engagement. This study identifies a significant factor contextualizing the relationship between media and civic life that has thus far been overlooked in studies of civic life or political behavior.
Highlights
Previous research has observed that media usage influences civic outcomes, including trust and political behavior
By analyzing cross-cultural data from 24 countries provided by the European Social Survey Round 5 (2010) and employing multi-level modeling, this study examines whether entertainment TV watching, political TV watching and Internet-use influence voting, non-traditional political participation and social trust through shaping individuallevel value orientations
The results presented here revealed that self-transcendence and openness values could promote both social trust and non-traditional political participation
Summary
Previous research has observed that media usage influences civic outcomes, including trust and political behavior. Civic engagement is on the decline because time spent on civic activities is being replaced by time spent using media, such as watching television (Brehm & Rahn, 1997; Kraut et al, 1998; Nie & Erbring, 2002; Putnam, 1995, 2000) This is not a unified view; other researchers argue that media technologies do not impede civic participation (Katz, Rice, & Aspden, 2001; Moy & Scheufele, 2000; Shah, Cho, Eveland, & Kwak, 2005; Shah, McLeod, & Yoon, 2001; Shah, Schmierbach, Hawkins, Espino, & Donavan, 2002), and that newer mediums like the Internet even have a positive impact on civic life (Dutta-Bergman, 2006; Hampton & Wellman, 2003; Shah et al, 2001; Wellman et al, 2003; Wellman, Quan-Haase, Witte, & Hampton, 2001). This paper focuses on non-traditional forms of political participation in addition to social trusti and voting
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