Online political consumption

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Conference on The politics of

consumption/the consumption of politics Claes H. de Vreese

The Amsterdam School of Communications Research ASCoR

University of Amsterdamwww.claesdevreese.com

October 2006

www.claesdevreese.com

Starting points

• Youth and media use• Civic and political engagement –

broadening the scope• Internet use: detailed use, detailed

understanding

Expectations• (H1) Internet use (measured in time) is unrelated to political

engagement and participation. • (H2) news consumption (in traditional and online media) is

positively related to political engagement and participation. • Online activity in general is positively related to traditional

political engagement and participation (H3a) and to digital forms of participation in particular (H3b).

• (H4) interactive online communication is positively related to political engagement and participation.

• (H5) A relative entertainment preference (REP) is negatively related to political engagement and participation.

• (H6) the explanatory value of differentiated Internet use exceeds the explanatory value of ‘traditional media use’ for understanding variation in young people’s political engagement and participation.

Method

• Web-based survey.• 10,000 respondents in the age

group 16-24 were drawn from a database and invited to participate.

• 2,404 completes (M age 19.2 years, SD 2.29).

Measures I• Political engagement: three items (alpha = .79) (M=1.92,

SD=.76).• political participation: digital participation and traditional

participation. • Digital participation: (PCA with Varimax rotation); two factors:

digital passive participation and digital active participation. • Digital passive participation (M=2.89, SD=.89); three items,

alpha = .77. • Digital active participation (M=3.05, SD=.88), three items, alpha

= .59 • Traditional political participation PCA; two factors: traditional

passive participation, traditional active participation. • Traditional passive participation (M=1.70, SD=.69); four items,

alpha =.76. • Traditional active participation (M=2.05, SD=.69); four items;

alpha =.75

Measures II (IV)

• Reading time (NP); viewing time (TV) surfing time (Internet) (time displacement hypothesis).

• NP: days of reading newspapers (5 cat, M=3.69; SD=1.15)

• TV : The two factors; public channels viewing (M=1.83, SD=.73, alpha =.78) and commercial channel viewing (M=2.41, SD=.66, alpha=.78).

• Relative Entertainment Preference (REP) (measures as Entertainment viewing / (Entertainment viewing + News viewing). Respondents could choose, in five rounds, between two programs (entertainment versus news/current affairs). REP recoded to range from 0 to 1 with higher values expressing a relative entertainment preference (M=.73, SD=.24).

Measures III (IV contd)• Internet Use:• Four types of use: • Internet news use; three item measure: (M=2.05,

SD=.83; alpha =.59).• Internet services use; three item measure (M=2.39,

SD=.68; alpha=.65). • Internet entertainment use; two item measure (M=3.59,

SD=1.11; alpha =. 69). • Club or associations activities; one item (M=2.46,

SD=1.31).Frequency of Internet communication: Emailing (M=4.25, SD=.77)Social networking (chatting, online communities) (M=3.33,

SD=.98),Forum participation (M=2.29, SD=1.24).

Results (Tables 1-5)

Blockwise regressions ((1)soc-dem/controls; (2) print media, (3) television, (4) internet, ((5) political engagement).

H1: time not importantH2: news consumption, across the board,

positively related to political engagement/participation

H3: Positive relationships online activity and political participation, in particular digital forms of participation

Results II (Tables 1-5)

H5: REP negatively related to political engagement and participation

H6: explanatory values differentiated internet use > traditional media use (14-25% vs 6-7%)

Discussion

• Youth and media use• Civic and political engagement –

broadening the scope• Internet use: detailed use, detailed

understanding; relative importance• Networking online• Digital citizenship?

Thank you!