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Traditional Cleavages or a New World: Does Online Social Networking Bridge the Political Participation Divide?

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Abstract

There is a growing literature that examines the effects of the Internet on political participation. We seek to contribute to this literature by exploring how online social networking may stimulate online political participation. Using survey data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, we confirm a strong positive relationship and show that this effect is driven by the level of political exchange within networks. Further, we explore the potential for the Internet to dissipate traditional cleavages in participation that tend to mirror the inequalities in the availability and use of technology. The findings suggest that while many of the “have-nots” do engage in online networking at higher rates than their counterparts, they are less likely to be exposed to political exchanges within their networks. As a result, the effect of online networking on participation is more pronounced for the “haves.” We discuss the implications of these findings.

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Notes

  1. As typical in survey research, there were some missing values in these data. We replaced these values to avoid the loss of cases in the analysis by imputing the missing values in the full and subsamples. Little's MCAR test indicated that the data were not missing completely at random (p < 0.001). They may be missing at random (MAR). Thus, listwise deletion may have biased our estimates. We imputed the missing values using a multiple imputation process. Five replicate datasets were created based on the data, and the missing data in each replication were substituted with draws from the posterior distribution of the missing value conditional on observed values (Little and Rubin 1987; see also Horton and Lipsitz 2001). The analyses that follow are based on pooled results of the five replicate imputed datasets.

  2. The question wording of all these variables is included in the Appendix.

  3. This model is also based on a subsample due to filtering questions in the survey. It includes only those respondents who claim to use the Internet, email, gather information about the election, and who have created an online profile.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, University of Louisville, Ford Hall Room 406, Louisville, KY, 40292, USA

    Jason Gainous

  2. Department of Political Science, University of Louisville, Ford Hall Room 205, Louisville, KY, 40292, USA

    Adam David Marlowe

  3. Department of Political Science, Florida Atlantic University, 384C Social Science Bld., Boca Raton, FL, USA

    Kevin M. Wagner

Authors
  1. Jason Gainous
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  2. Adam David Marlowe
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  3. Kevin M. Wagner
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jason Gainous.

Appendix

Appendix

All variables centered between 0 and 1.

  • Online political participation

    1. 1.

      About how often do you send email to friends, family members, or others urging them to support a candidate or to discuss the campaign? (No, yes)

    2. 2.

      I’m going to read a list of things you may or may not have done online in the past several months. Just tell me if you happened to do each one: (no/yes)

      1. (A)

        Contributed money online to a candidate running for public office?

      2. (B)

        Signed up to receive email from candidates or campaigns?

      3. (C)

        Posted your own political commentary or writing to an online news group, website, or blog?

      4. (D)

        Forwarded or posted someone else's political commentary or writing?

      5. (E)

        Created and posted your own political audio or video recordings?

      6. (F)

        Forwarded or posted someone else's political audio or video recordings?

      7. (G)

        Created tags for news, information, or photos about politics or the election?

      8. (H)

        Signed an online petition?

      9. (I)

        Signed up online for any volunteer activities related to the campaign like helping to register voters or get people to the polls?

  • SNS Use

    1. 1.

      Have you ever created your own profile online that others can see, like on a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn.com? (No/yes)

    2. 2.

      Please tell me if you ever use the internet to do any of the following things. Do you ever use the internet to use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn.com? (Yes/yesterday, yes/not yesterday, no, recoded so higher values represent more use)

  • Political SNS Use

    Thinking about what you have done on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, have you

    1. (A)

      Gotten any campaign or candidate information on the sites?

    2. (B)

      Started or joined a political group or group supporting a cause on a social networking?

    3. (C)

      Discovered your friends' political interests or affiliations on the site?

    4. (D)

      Signed up as a “friend” of any candidates on a social networking site?

  • SES

    1. 1.

      Income: The survey allowed for nine possible responses. We collapsed them into four categories based on quartiles. The first quartile is $0–30,000 annually. The second quartile is $30,001–50,000 annually. The third quartile is $50,001–100,000 annually. The fourth quartile is over $100,000 annually.

    2. 2.

      Education: (a) less than high school, (b) high school graduate, (c) some college, (d) college graduate or more

  • Political interest

    How much thought have you given to the presidential election this year? Quite a lot, some, little, and none were the response options (recoded so higher values represent more attentiveness)

  • Age

    18–30, 31–40, 41–50, 51–60, and 61–98

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Gainous, J., Marlowe, A.D. & Wagner, K.M. Traditional Cleavages or a New World: Does Online Social Networking Bridge the Political Participation Divide?. Int J Polit Cult Soc 26, 145–158 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-013-9130-2

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