8 - On the Causal Nature of the Relationship between Internet Access and Political Engagement

Summary

Introduction

Digital media are expected by many scholars to revolutionize democracy (for an overview, see Barber 1999; Ward and Vedel 2006). Although a pessimistic school of thought argues that the internet provides governments opportunities for subtle surveillance and control (Barber 1999; Krueger 2006), more optimistic analysts counter that the internet may strengthen civil societies, grassroots politics, and direct democracy (Coliagnese 2003; Hara and Estrada 2005). This second school of thought expects the internet, among other things, to increase the political involvement of citizens and their propensity to take political action (for a review, see the Introduction and Chapter 1).

The past fifteen years have seen dramatic changes in how citizens and policy makers communicate. Worldwide, the internet and online forums are playing an ever more central role in candidates and parties’ efforts to mobilize campaign participation (Norris 2003; Howard 2005), and in many countries, the internet is also replacing newspapers and television as a primary source of political information for an increasing number of groups in society, especially younger people (Norris 2002; Johnson and Kaye 2003; Tolbert and McNeal 2003; De Zúñiga, Puig-i-Abril, and Rojas 2009). Although the internet has changed the forms of political communication, many scholars doubt that it has also changed the prevalence of political engagement in the population at large. These skeptics argue that the internet is “preaching to the converted” (Norris 2003, 21); that is, politically mobilized citizens select themselves into using the internet, but access to the internet does not causally increase political engagement.