Digital Political Participation Research Articles

Social Stratification on the Political Participation of Generation Z Women in Pantai Bahagia Village and Medalkrisna Village, Bekasi Regency

This study aims to understand the relationship between social stratification and the political participation of Generation Z women in Pantai Bahagia Village and Medalkrisna Village, Bekasi Regency. The method used was a mixed-methods approach that combines both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The political participation of Generation Z women was measured based on the forms of conventional, non-conventional, cultural, and digital participation. The research results indicate that there is variation in political participation based on social stratification, with the lower strata tending to be more active in conventional political participation, the middle strata being more active in digital political participation, and the upper strata being more involved in election administration. This study highlights the importance of creating an inclusive political environment to enhance young women’s political participation.

Digital political participation for rural development: Necessary conditions and cultures of participation

There has been much enthusiasm around the use of digitally networked information and communications technologies to foster political participation. Given their potential to engage citizens in rural development via online tools and processes, there are particularly high expectations that these technologies will mitigate some disadvantages of nonurban places. Yet, even if these hopes are reasonable, there is little research on the enduring establishment of digital political participation for rural development. In response, our study centers on six exemplary regional case studies in Germany concerning the obstacles to and catalysts of digital political participation. The public administrators, members of associations, businesses, and nonprofits, and citizens we interviewed pointed to the importance of administrative infrastructures, tailored offers, and resourceful citizens. What these factors could, however, not achieve was a culture of participation that may inspire attitudes and lived practices. This has implications for understanding and facilitating digital political participation for rural development. By locating the incentives and barriers to civic engagement within a culture of participation, our work underscores the need for holistic, long-term endeavors to develop and encourage politically involved citizenship.

Peran Media Sosial Dalam Meningkatkan Partisipasi Pemilih Pemula Di Kalangan Mahasiswa Universitas Muhammadiyah Riau

Novice voters are the type of voters who need to pay attention to their level of political participation. The importance of the role of social media is needed because of the lack of awareness and low political education for beginner voters so that it can reduce their participation rate in general elections. The aim is to find out the importance of the role of social media in increasing the participation of novice voters among students of Muhammadiyah Riau University. This research uses a descriptive qualitative method by collecting data and research facts about the role of social media and beginner voters among students. The existence of social media requires the government and political parties to immediately respond to all comments. Nowadays, people can communicate directly with these institutions to voice their opinions, provide comments, and even submit their demands. First-time voters can participate in politics through various digital platforms. This phenomenon creates a new era in political participation, known as digital political participation or more simply referred to as online political participation. Social media is now the cheapest, fastest and most effective communication tool. It is inevitable how important the role of social media is in politics to attract people's attention through campaigns, teach the younger generation about politics, and increase the participation of first-time voters.

Play on Twitter During Health Crisis in Non-Democratic Context: Gratification or Dissent?

There is scholarly debate on whether digital political participation influence decision-making or merely make citizens feel good. Using digital public sphere theory and play, this article explores political participation on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe. The study applies a qualitative content analysis on tweets as it answers questions: does perspective by media users in a health crisis exert political change and in what way does play on digital spheres induce participation for gratification purposes? The findings of the study reflect the use of conspiratorial satire, hyperbole, and propaganda in the COVID-19 pandemic as media users laugh at poor health infrastructure, corruption and authoritarianism. We argue that netizens’ political participation on social media is somehow overrated for it has not generated meaningful change in non-democratic context but gives the media user, a sense of gratification for scoffing at the ruling regime.

The phenomenon of digital political participation: forms, models and essential aspects

This article is devoted to the study of the conceptual features of the phenomenon of digital political participation, as well as its key forms and models of implementation. According to the author, in the last two decades there has been a transformation of traditional forms and models of political participation under the influence of digital information and communication technologies. In particular, social networks and messengers are used as tools for organizing, mobilizing, implementing various forms of political participation and civil-political activism. At the same time, under the influence of the development of digital information and communication technologies, completely new forms and models of civil and political participation are emerging. In this regard, it is legitimate to talk about the existence today of the phenomenon of online political participation (OPP), or digital network participation (DNP). One of the key questions remains the question of the relationship between "traditional" and digital forms of political participation. Based on the results of the analysis, the author comes to the conclusion that "traditional" and digital political participation are complementary to each other, since digital communication technologies allow today to involve a large number of potentially politically active citizens, disseminate political information and thereby create favorable conditions for the implementation of direct political action.

Women and digital political communication in non-Western societies

ABSTRACT This special issue brings together contributions and theoretical insights that probe ways through which gender interacts with context to shape non-Western-based political communication trends. It seeks to address the need to diversify theory and research in political communication. Our key contribution is to provide empirically-guided, contextually-shaped and methodologically-rich research on digital political communication strategies that facilitate women's political participation in geographical areas underrepresented in the scholarship. We do this in five ways. First, feminist approaches to digital political communication have rarely been studied this way, focusing exclusively on previously unaddressed developments in non-Western settings while also theorizing their contributions to communication scholarship through a special issue format in a credible journal that retains a wider audience. Second, it is of scholarly interest to know whether women politicians in richer and poor countries grapple with the same issues when it comes to political communication. Third, we provide novel ways to expand scholarship on women's digital political participation through incorporation of indigenous knowledge and practices. Fourth, the diversity of fresh voices coupled with pioneering findings assembled in this special issue is encouraging in a field dominated by a few. Finally, the number of women vying for political office in the Global South is increasing. Therefore, studying how they are faring on the political frontline has a significant bearing on how current and future studies within the remit of understudied non-Western digital political communication can and should be framed, paving way for new and better understandings on the region and its multifaceted political perturbations.

Developing a Digital and Traditional Political Participation (DTPP) Scale for Youth: A Validity and Reliability Study

The purpose of this study is to develop and validate a political participation scale for youth, considering both traditional and digital political participation (DTPP). The research was conducted using 458 participants from Turkey, Italy, and Romania, aged between 15 and 29 years. Explanatory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were performed to test the structural validity of the scale. EFA results illustrated that scale consisted of three factors and the total variance was 61.23%. These factors were labeled as “digital political support”, “traditional political support” and “digital political following”. During confirmatory factor analysis, the three-factor structure was tested, and the resulting model produced an acceptable goodness of fit The scale consists of 39 items and the reliability coefficients for each subscale vary from .92 and .95. The results show that the scale is valid and reliable to measure traditional and digital political participation of young people.

Political Disaffection and Digital Political Participation in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis of the Period 2008–2020

One of the issues facing the field of political behaviour analysis in recent years has been the transformation of political participation among citizens, in a context of increasing change, profoundly marked by the spread of a new digital paradigm. Network society has brought with it new forms of political participation, where different types of participatory citizenship coexist in a process of increasing interaction which, in turn, creates new morphologies, and where online and offline modes are reciprocal, generating new patterns of behaviour. Of these different types of participatory citizenship, that of the disaffected is perhaps among the most important in recent years and, in particular, since the start of the so-called “Great Recession” around 2008, and the subsequent global COVID-19 crisis. This recent context can be characterised by a significant increase in political disaffection, resulting from a loss of trust in institutions and from the constant distancing of a certain section of the citizenry from politics as a coded punishment of those governments and institutions they see as ineffective. This paper provides an analysis of citizenship types in Latin America, particularly that of the disaffected, describing their relationship to the following of political information through digital media and social networks, and identifying patterns of evolution and development in some of the trends. Results show that a clear distinction exists between the different types of citizenship and associated forms of participation, both online and offline, while also describing differences in both political perceptions and attitudes, and between areas or regions in Latin America. Likewise, important differences are found according to citizen type in relation to the following of different social networks, especially among citizens categorised as critical or disaffected.

FROM TOP-DOWN TO BOTTOM-UP: POLITICAL IMAGE MANAGEMENT AND THE PRESERVATION OF WHITE SUPREMACY THROUGH VISUALS AND MEMES ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

Social media platforms play an increasing role in politics, facilitating the circulation of populist texts disseminated by politicians, official campaign media, and user-generated content, all of which contribute to voters’ perceptions of politicians and political issues. The networks and affordances of social media platforms allow for the development of an individualized, affective connection with voters, which is a particularly important strategy for far-right politicians, who are often stigmatized. Furthermore, social media enables the circulation of user-generated materials in a form of digital political participation, allowing citizens to respond in real-time to political developments. While digital political participation ostensibly offers the potential for the expression of marginalized perspectives, digital texts predominantly emphasize and enforce existing hierarchies, particularly the supremacy of whiteness. This panel explores visuals and memes circulated on social media through the lenses of platform studies, whiteness studies, nostalgia, and Critical Discourse Analysis. By examining both “top-down” media disseminated by public figures and “bottom-up” user-generated content, this panel provides an in-depth understanding of the social media ecosystems that work to preserve and extend far-right values and white supremacy. Rachel Winter focuses on the influence of official campaign materials on user-generated content, as well as the impacts of both on candidate image management and the racial hierarchy of the United States. An analysis of representations of race in user-generated Rafael “Ted” Cruz and Robert “Beto” O’Rourke memes reveals an embedded valuation of whiteness and white supremacy to the detriment of other racial demographics. Political memes collected from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Reddit uphold the importance of the white racial identity of candidates and, in so doing, attempt to preserve White American identities from the perceived threat of multiculturalism embodied in racially diverse politicians and their constituents. Julia DeCook examines nostalgia and chronotopes in alt-right memes, contending that the emphasis on “tradition” over “progress” is an attempt to unify the alt-right and preserve white identity and supremacy from threats of globalization and feminism. The alt-right creates virtual nation-states that use consistent linguistic strategies to enable these groups to engage in a form of collective action. Examining white supremacist memes from Reddit and Instagram, Panelist 2 explores the ways that time, memory, and the abstract conception of “the past” are used in digital propaganda to appeal to younger voters and emphasize the myth that whiteness must be protected from the threat of multiculturalism.

Mecanismos digitales para la participación en partidos políticos de la CPLP

This research analyzes and compares the implementation of digital political participation devices among the political parties of the four largest states of the CPLP in terms of population. Based on the influence and incentives of the context of each state, we expect greater adoption of participation tools among the political parties of those states most digitized and developed at the socioeconomic level. For the verification of the starting hypothesis, the information regarding the categories and study variables related to the participation was collected through the websites of the selected political parties through a systematic observation. Statistical analysis of the data obtained did not allow us to confirm the relationship between the level of general digitization, socioeconomic development, and the degree of digitization of political parties. Based on the results obtained, we propose a series of alternative explanations that may be tested in future work.

Making the Long March Online: Some Cultural Dynamics of Digital Political Participation in Three Chinese Societies

This study examines the authoritarian conditioning of political expression on social media in three Chinese societiesby analyzing three parallel surveys comprising 6942 respondents from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Results demonstrate that the use of social media to gather political information triggers politically expressive use of social media and indirectly predicts offline non-institutionalized political participation. Individuals' authoritarian orientation, however, moderates such indirect effects. Only people who demonstrate low or moderate adherence to authoritarian value systems exemplify this mediation model. Those with high levels of authoritarian orientation are not exemplary. Furthermore, the extent to which social media use interacts with authoritarian orientation to build a relationship with political participation presents two different patterns across three Chinese societies. The moderated mediating effect described here exists in Hong Kong and Taiwan but not in mainland China. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings.

Digital Political Participation of Western and Eastern Parts of Germany Residents (based on Change.org Online Petitions)

The article shows the results of a study aimed at finding the determinants, which describe the petitioning activity of the residents of the western and eastern parts of Germany. The research material consists of 1,036 petitions from the German-language segment of Change.org during the period of 2012–2018 (322 petitions from eastern part of Germany, 714 petitions from western part of Germany). A thematic classifier based on the analysis of electronic petitions was created. It subdivided all the petitions into 18 thematic groups, for example, human rights, animal protection, culture, politics, migration issues, proposals for reforming certain areas of life, transport system, Internet, protection and support for people with disabilities and rare diseases, financial questions, environmental protection, housing issues, weapons/spirits/tobacco/drugs, healthcare, elderly people, education, sports, sustainable development. Statistically significant differences between western and eastern territories were found only in the animal protection thematic group. It is stated that the bipolar construct East/West rooted in the historical logic of the legacy of socialism and capitalism on the German territories could not explain the logic of the petitioning activity of the contemporary Germans. Moreover, the historical heritage/separation factor is found in the socio-economic problems of the regions, but it is not critical while determining the values and civic activism of German people.

Digital Political Participation and the Digital Divide: Insights from the Cambodia Case

Political participation in Cambodia is broadly characterised by high voter turnouts and limited democratic constitutionalism to ensure that elections are inclusive and a fairly contested process. The popularisation of digital media and tools profoundly impacted political participation in Cambodia: on the one hand, digital media improved people’s political engagement – for example, with organisational skills to take part in political rallies – but, on the other hand, challenges like digital surveillance or unequal opportunities to benefit from digital media emerged. This article uses existing literature to explain how digital media has changed political participation, and primary data from in-depth interviews to key members of civil society to analyse the impact of the digital divide on political participation. It is suggested that digital media is valuable opportunity to improve democratic governance, but the digital divide is limiting its democratising capabilities; young citizens with critical thinking skills are more likely to benefit from digital democracy, while adults with lower critical engagement with digital media are more exposed to threats like fake news. This article feedbacks debates on political participation in the digital era and, more broadly, on the democratisation capabilities of digital media, and endorses the views of techno-sceptics, who acknowledge the opportunities of digital democracy, but they show great(er) concern for the challenges.

Mechanisms for inclusion and exclusion through digital political participation: Evidence from a\xa0comparative study of online consultations in three German cities

Consistent findings of unequal political participation have been motivating different democratic innovations, including those that utilize the opportunities of information and communication technologies for political online participation. While previous research has established only a limited mobilizing potential of digital media, we still lack a good understanding of the mechanisms leading citizens to decide for or against engagement online. Therefore, we investigate who participates in opportunities for political online participation, what explains (non)-engagement and how effective personalized invitations are to increase and diversify participation. To address these questions, we conducted a comparative study of three almost identical instances of local online participation, relying on evidence from surveys of registered users and random samples of the local population.Our results show that engagement in online participation is indeed significantly biased from the population towards resource-rich individuals who also differ in their assessment of the participation process and its results. This is despite the fact that knowledge of these participation opportunities is equally distributed among all social groups. While online aversion is a barrier for some, distrust in the participation process and lack of interest are more powerful reasons to refrain from engagement. Using a randomized-controlled field experiment we can confirm that personalized invitations are an effective instrument for mobilization that increased participation by a factor of four to seven and that can to a limited degree elicit participation from under-represented groups. These findings have a number of important implications for researchers and practitioners who aim to increase equality in political participation.

Commodification and Digital Political Participation: The “15-M Movement” and the Collectivization of the Internet

La mercantilizacion y la participacion politica digital: el “Movimiento 15-M” y la colectivizacion del Internet A mercantilizacao e a participacao politica digital: o Movimento 15-M e a coletivizacao da internet DOI: 10.5294/pacla.2018.21.4.3 The objective of this article is to analyze an emerging process in the network society: the commodification of the Internet and political communication. This strategy of technological capitalism is becoming increasingly present in the lives of citizens around the world, and it represents a new challenge for critical thinking. In this article we will show the debate around this process and we will point out a few examples. However, despite the existence of this process of commodification, society is not taking a passive attitude. On the contrary, we have cases of social movements, such as the Spanish 15-M, which identified this process and designed a strategy to try to reverse it. However, and despite the efforts of this movement, many of the achievements of the 15-M against commodification have lost their validity. In this paper we review the current state of the debate on the commercialization of politics and, through a qualitative study, we show how the 15-M defined this process and established instruments to fight it. In the conclusions we discuss this process and show its current situation in Spain.

Exploring Factors Associated With Digital and Conventional Political Participation in the Caribbean

The use of social media is becoming a feature of political engagement in the Caribbean. This article investigates factors associated with digital and conventional political participation in Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Surinam and Haiti using 2012 AmericasBarometer dataset. Based on logistic regression, attitudinal factors positively associated with digital political participation are: political understanding, support for democracy, conventional political participation, and internet usage. Digital political action is less likely for the politically tolerant. Engagement in protest is positively associated with digital political action, signing petition, greater levels of education, being male but less likely for those who use the internet. These findings demonstrate that digital political action and conventional political participation are mutually reinforcing.

Reasons to Participate: The Role of Political Attitudes in Digital Activism

In this paper, we study the effects of political attitudes on digital activism. We operationalise political attitudes through three constructs used in classical political science studies: citizenship norms, institutional trust and psychological political engagement. In addition, following the social-psychological models of explanation of political conduct, we suggest the existence of a qualitative difference between the affective component of attitudes, which would coincide with psychological political engagement, and the cognitive component of attitudes, which are made up of political beliefs and values. The latter influences the former, which, in turn, has an influence on political conduct. To achieve our goals, we have analysed digital political participation in Spain. Our results support the qualitative differentiation between cognitive and affective components of attitudes; as a result, there is a clear need to study those political beliefs that specifically characterise digital activism.

Variation in the Relationship Between Digital Media Use and Political Participation in U.S. Elections Over Time, 1996–2012: Does Obama’s Reelection Change the Picture?

ABSTRACTIn an earlier study, we examined the relationship between digital media use and six acts of political participation in the United States between 1996 and 2008. We found that digital media use was associated with participation more broadly in 2008 than in preceding years and concluded with a question about whether the relationship between digital media use and behavior might be strengthening over time. Here we add 2012 data to address that question. The extended time series, from 1996 to 2012, reinforced our main findings: (1) the relationship between digital media use and behavior exhibits highly idiosyncratic variation over time; and (2) political talk constitutes an exception because of its consistent and positive relationship with seeking political information online.

Digital skills as a conditioning factor for digital political participation

AbstractWhile all forms of Internet activity have an impact on the lives of Internet users, some are particularly beneficial and allow people to improve their daily lives. One of such Internet use is Digital Political Participation (DDP). In this paper we seek to understand how the influence of digital skills on the adoption of Digital Political Participation practices may form the basis of a second level of digital divide and of a set of political inequalities. We operationalize the digital skills construct in terms of users’ Internet competence and level of appropriation. We hypothesize that digital skills have a significant influence on the adoption of beneficial uses of the Internet, such as DPP. At the same time, we examine whether digital skill levels are stratified by socio-demographic background, thereby generating political and social inequality. By looking at the Spanish case, we first tested the adequateness of the items chosen to measure these two dimensions. Second, we looked into sequences of multiple influences between socio-demographic variables and digital skills and between digital skills and DPP. The results show that socio demographic variables have an influence on digital skills. At the same time, digital skills have a strong influence on DPP.

Hactivism in Turkey: The Case of Redhack

Ever since daily activities have been carried into digital, cyberspace have become one of the primary grounds for citizen participation activities such political discourse and activism. Wikileaks documents, the effects of social media in the Arab Spring and global and local hacker movements are great instances for digital political participation with high impact such as the creation and diffusion of new conceptions like cyber security and cyber warfare. Internet’s role in this new age activism is crucial; especially hacker movements are using Internet as a tool of resistance. Hacking activity as a political activism or hacktivism is simply an activity that making a system unworkable and acquiring and publishing information with the aim of raising public awareness. Using both mainstream and social media as a communication tool, hacker groups such as Anonymous Chaos Computer Club (CCC) and LulzSec aim to ignite activist protests from online to offline. Just like the global hacker groups, hacker groups in Turkey aim the exact same goal. Turkish hacktivists can be divided into two categories as nationalist groups who hacks websites in other countries in order to leave messages and left-wing hackers who defend the freedom of information. As the most powerful example of hactivism in Turkey, Redhack contain similar aspects. In this study, hactivism will be discussed by its ethical aspects and the center of this academic study will be the Redhack case. Following the review of literature, a quantitative research in university students is shared to observe their perspective on Redhack and hactivism. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n9p628