| This study explores the influence of mass media, Internet, and community context on civic socialization. Multilevel tests are presented to elucidate newspaper, television and Internet effects on three forms of civic participation---voting, political action, and volunteering. The effects of individual differences in the media use, interpersonal communication, and aggregate differences in community context are analyzed. Analyses within sub-samples of generational cohorts demonstrate differences in patterns of media use and levels of civic engagement. Findings show that among the youngest Americans, use of the Internet more strongly influences civic participation than older cohorts. The presence of contextual effects in predicting civic participation is evidence of multilevel influence in civic socialization process. In addition to verifying that the civic climate in a given geographical boundary has an impact on citizens' civic participation, a causal model suggests that community context, like attitudes that motivate participation, works indirectly through communication. The present study improves the measure of contextual effects using zip code areas as a proximal community boundary, as opposed to considerably larger geographical units in previous studies, in a model of civic participation and communication behaviors. |
