Literature Review
Literature Review
The adoption of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) by citizens has drastically changed the way we live and interaction patterns. The impact of the Internet on every aspect of our life has been a very intriguing topic for scholars of many disciplines. In this work, under the broad topic-the relationship between the internet and political participation, we specifically focus on the question whether the use of social networking sites by university students can enhance their political participation in China. In the literature, compared with comprehensive discussions of the general terms of internet and political engagement, fewer work has emphasized the aspect of a particular form of internet applications, such as social networking sites, partly because social media or web2.0 technology are relatively new.
Thus, we will firstly review some dominant views on whether the rise of Internet could play an active role in widening and deepening citizen’s political participation so as to provide a broad background before examining the previous works answering a similar question of our research. Secondly we move to review some research about the usage of social media and youth’s political participation. Thirdly how Chinese participate in politics and the implication of the popularity of internet will be discussed.
Internet and Political Participation
In the literature there are various and even opposite hypotheses developed with regard to the political impact of the prevalence of the internet. Optimists support the idea that a more engaged political community can be achieved by the internet (Stanley & Weare, 2004), while pessimists believe the internet shows little advantage in providing a participatory model (Gerhards & Schafer, 2010) . Many other research doesn’t provide a firm answer to the question (Ward, Gibson & Lusoli, 2003, Gennaro & Dutton, 2006, Polat, 2005), which can be explained by the fact that no constant evaluation systems have been widely accepted. The full panel data from 1992 to 2002 was used in one more recent research showed internet was not able to explain significant variation in democracy cores around the world (Best & Wade, 2009).
Predictors of Political Participation
To well measure the forms, the style and the level of the political participation in our article, the concept of political participation should be carefully examined. As mentioned above many studies have adopted the socioeconomics status （SES）as the predictor of political participation, based on the ideal that unequal levels of participation should be given equal consideration. Based on the SES model, a resource model of political participation was developed with the advantage that it can not only perform as predictor of the political participation, but also it in fact links the SES to the political activities, explaining why people from different social background participate in particular kinds of political activity. Authors claim the resources, time, money and civic skills, which distribute relating to SES, are powerful predictors of political participation (Brady, Verba, & Schlozman, 1995). However, it may not be such case, because the motivations in politics, such as interest and efficacy, are excluded by the model. Using this framework, another paper analyzing the representativeness of internet political participation develops its first two steps by modeling and assessing how non-monetary factors influencing online participation distribute across social categories (Best & Krueger, 2005).
.
A more informed public?
Research examining the social implications of the internet questions whether the increased availability of information provided by the internet has served to a more informed public (DiMaggio et al, 2001). A common logic is that a more informed society is achieved by easier access to a high volume of information (Browning, 1996; Rheingold, 1991). Not only the use of traditional sources of information online but also the emergence of usage of weblogs is equally important predictors of online political engagement (Zúñiga & Rojas, 2009). However, another empirical study rejects the mechanisms linked between the information availability and levels of engagement (Bimber, 2001). Meanwhile Polat summarizes why high volume of information online doesn’t guarantee a more informed public: that human processing information ability is limited, that most online information comes from traditional sources, that unequal distribution of information exists, and that the internet feature of narrow casting leads to fragmentation (Polat, 2005).
Increased deliberative discussion?
In addition, optimists suggest another reason to argue the enhanced level of participation, namely, the potential to increased deliberative discussion. Interactive civic messaging reinforces interpersonal political discussion which in turn fosters civic participation (Shah et al. 2005). A comparison between an online forum and traditional media confirms the effect of the internet bringing new participants to political discussion (Stanley & Weare, 2004). By expanding the communication capacity, the internet may facilitate a qualitative change from mass communication into horizontal discussions, but it still needs further observation (Ward, Gibson & Lusoli, 2003, Polat, 2005). An empirical study rejected the idea to consider the internet as a public sphere, where deliberative participation is improved, by laying out a model to compare internet and print media (Gerhards and Schäfer, 2010).
A more interactive government?
Except that opinions on increased horizontal participation diverse, whether the internet can play a positive role in promoting a more interactive government is still doubtful. A simplistic view regarding that increasing the access to broadband internet can result trust in government is denied research studying four cases of municipalities (Tapia & Ortiz, 2010). Another research with a special interest in the vertical relationship between the authority and citizens in China claims that people can enhance participation by e-information, e-consultation, e-discussion and e-decision making, but it’s all under government’s close monitoring (Jiang&Xu 2009). A case study examines the e-participation and local governance seems to come to a similar conclusion that though increased involvement exists there is no fundamental change because of the civic culture and social capital (Alonso, 2009). The evolving technology may indeed not be able to perform perfectly for e-democracy at present time, but government should take incremental steps to adapt to the internet (Coleman & Norris, 2005, Dutton & Peltu, 2007).
Widened participation or digital divide?
When measuring political participation, socioeconomic status (SES), gender and age are often used as control variables (Shi, 1997, Tolbert & McNeal, 2003, Weber et al.2003, Best & Krueger, 2005, Gennaro & Dutton, 2006). While still using these factors for online participation, many other studies look into the area of digital divide and internet use by the youth. Physical locations are identified as a predictor of the access to the internet, the usage of which has a clear effect on civic participation-contacting a public official (Sylvester & McGlynn, 2009). One noteworthy result from the study of municipal e-participation in Norway shows the younger citizens who usually stand outside the political participation use the web actively, and there is no obvious difference of the online political participation between the political elites and citizens, even though the internet widens the social and demographic divisions (Saglie & Vabo, 2009). Apart from the individual level, a perspective from media is adopted by the research claiming the plurality of media, especially the social media, is challenging the previous relationship between the monopolistic media and politics (Muir, 2008).
Youth and social media
Since it is indicated in several studies that the internet have brought the younger generation into political participation either online or offline (Coleman, 2005, Gennaro & Dutton, 2006), it is necessary to narrow down our review into works related to young adults, where also our research question lies in. To examine the extant relationship between the youth’s internet use and civic engagement, a study shows a digital renaissance of youth and the two concepts are positively related (Vreese, 2007). A more recent study confirms this finding but the difference of civic participation and political participation is distinguished, and the interpersonal communication is considered as the essential predictor (Zhang et al, 2010). Although the emergence of social networking sites seems to promise a democratic discourse for its users, this hypothesis is rejected since young adults do not more inclined to participate in politics than other forms of media (Baumgartner & Morris, 2009). Avoiding direct answer to the question, the authors broke the internet use into purposes and time dimensions, and then reached the conclusions that the youth’s activity is an important predictor of the civic engagement rather than time spent online (Quintelier 2008). Then later research further focuses on the ordinary youth neither apathetic nor activists but the influence of the medium the internet have on youngsters is not emphasized (Harris, Wyn, & Younes, 2010). Although internet may not be the point in this research but actually their individualized acts expressing their political and social concerns are shaped by the internet.
Political Participation in China
What reviewed above mainly neglects how to assess the political participation and to provide a meaningful concept in China, we have to move into the area of the modes of political participation in China and how internet fosters the participation. Combining the dimensions, initiative required, risks (the most important factor) and conflict, a study divides the political participation acts in Beijing into seven modes: voting, campaign activities, appeals, adversarial appeals, cronyism, resistance, and election boycotts. The institutional arrangements have played a very important role in people’s political behavior in Chinese society. For example, the individualized acts can be effective, so the differentiation between particularized contacts and communal activities will disappear (Shi, 1997). Instead of directly examining the ordinary people’s forms of political participation, a research proposes six policy agenda setting models to explain how participants at various levels have a say in the process of policy formulation (Wang, 2008), which has not been emphasized by Shi’s work for his pessimistic view on the possibility. In addition it is noteworthy to mention that Wang envisages the rise of the internet provides primary channels for Chinese citizens to comment on public affairs and challenge the authority, but except for extreme controversial cases, most issues brought by the internet still needs long time to transform accumulative online political participation into policy adjustments (Wang, 2008).