Political Values, Political Attitudes, and Attitude Polarization in Internet Political Discussion: Political Transformation or Politics as Usual?

Abstract

The scholarly literature on the social effects of technology suggests a number of hypotheses regarding the political implications of the Internet including that it will: make no difference (normalization); mobilize those already interested in politics (reinforcement); mobilize new types of participants with different political attitudes (mobilization); instill new types of attitudes (cultural change); and polarize attitudes (pclarization). This paper will test the null hypothesis of normalization - that political discussion on the Internet does not represent people with different or more polarized political values, Party identifications, ideology, and other political attitudes than does offline discussion. A 2001 representative sample mail survey of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania residents elicited key politicai attitudes and political values - egalitarianism, humanitarianism, economic individualism, traditionalism, and racism. The results replicate findings from rior studies showing significant attitude and value differences between online and offline activists and discussants. But, when proper account is taken of discussion frequencies, these differences prove insignificant. For Internet users as a whole, the normalization hypothesis is supported and the mobilization and polarization hypotheses are rejected. Focusing on a particular demographic category to test the cultural change hypothesis, however, shows that Internet political discussion overrepresents younger people who are appreciably more conservative.