Political efficacy, community collective efficacy, trust and extroversion in the information society: Differences between online and offline civic/political activities

Abstract

A number of prior studies found that the level of an individual's political efficacy is highly correlated with civic engagement, mainly offline civic and political activities such as signing petitions, donating money to political campaigns, or doing volunteer work in local communities. However, a few studies have focused on online civic and political activities with political efficacy such as posting factual information for other citizens, working for a political party, or sending e-mails to local government officials since the beginning of the internet. Thus, this study explores the relationship between internal/external political efficacy and online civic/political activities. In addition, to understand the multidimensional relations, other psychological factors such as the level of trust, extroversion and community collective efficacy are also examined. In this study, the National Science Foundation Digital Government Survey of 2005/2006 and 2012 were used. By using the Hierarchical Regression Model, this study found different patterns between measures of efficacy such as internal/external political efficacy including community efficacy and offline/online civic/political activities. Related to offline civic and political activities, the external political efficacy was positively associated with those activities. Meanwhile, in online activities, the internal political efficacy was more strongly related than the external one. In other words, individual citizens who have higher internal political efficacy may use the internet more as an imperative communication channel to reach elected officials or public servants. Furthermore, community collective efficacy is positively related with both offline and online civic activities. This case study contributes to expanding our understanding on political efficacy, collective efficacy, civic and political behaviors, and internet use at the local community level.