Internet Use And Political Participation

In the era of Internet,Internet is becoming a necessity of daily life.The wide use of the Internet has a certain impact on the political participation of citizens.Therefore,it is of certain significance to study the role mechanism of Internet use on political participation to promote the development of democratic society.More and more scholars at home and abroad are concerned about Internet and political participation,as well as the study of consciousness,attitude,feelings and political participation.In these studies,on the one hand,it is proved that the development of Internet media based on the Internet has promoted the progress of civic awareness,on the other hand,it has also proved that the role of the Internet as a medium has expanded the political participation of citizens.However,most scholars have studied the influence of Internet or civic awareness on political participation,and the mechanism of explanation is missing.In this study,the use of Internet is quantified into two aspects of Internet usage frequency and network information channel.Political participation is decomposed into institutionalized political participation and collective action.First,the relationship between the four groups of variables is discussed respectively.Secondly,the intermediary effects of Internet use,democratic consciousness and political participation are discussed.In theory,this study supplements the lack of Internet use in the study of the mechanism of political participation;in reality,it is useful to recognize the influence of the use of the Internet on citizens' awareness of democracy and political participation,and to promote the participation of citizens' political participation and prevent the occurrence of collective events by means of the means and control of the Internet.In this paper,the STATA13 statistical software is used to analyze the data,and the analysis methods such as frequency analysis,correlation analysis and Logit regression analysis are used to explore the mechanism of the use of the Internet on the role of political participation by the procedural logic of intermediary analysis.The main conclusions of the study are as follows:First,Internet has been developing rapidly in recent years,but traditional media still play a major role.In terms of the use of Internet in our country,the number of people with network as information channels has developed steadily,the overall level is basically between 15%and 30%,while the frequency of Internet use is increasing year by year.Second,China's residents' political participation is developing steadily,but the level of overall political participation is still not high.The number of residents who participated in institutionalized political activities(voting)remained at around 48%,and the number of residents participating in collective action remained at a low level.Third,Internet use has a significant negative impact on institutionalized political participation.The results of the regression show that the use of Internet has a significant impact on institutionalized political participation,but its effect is reverse,while the effect of collective action is not significant.Fourth,Internet use is negatively correlated with democratic consciousness.Regression results show that Internet usage frequency,network information channel and democracy consciousness all present a significant negative correlation.Fifth,there is a partial mediation effect between democracy awareness and institutionalized political participation.In a word,China is in a period of rapid social transformation.In this process,we should not only pay attention to the cultivation of the active political participation consciousness of the citizens,but also maintain the regional and global stability.Therefore,the understanding of the role mechanism of Internet use and political participation is beneficial to influence citizen consciousness by controlling media information,and further promote citizens' participation in political participation and prevention of collective events.