Online political efficacy and political participation: A mediation analysis based on the evidence from Taiwan
作者
Chao Chen , Yu Bai , Rui Wang
出處
New Media & Society
出版年
2019
卷期
21(8)
頁數
1667-1696
關鍵字(中)
關鍵字(英)
Mediation analysis, online political efficacy, political participation
摘要(中)
摘要(英)
Consensus on the impact of information-oriented use of social media on political
participation is lacking. Some argue a positive relationship, in that social media
promotes participation through awakening the user’s agency, while others focus
on the selection and disenabling effects of low-quality content. Nevertheless, both
arguments focus almost exclusively on the objective conditions for participation and
largely ignore users’ motivations to participate. Consequently, this article proposes
online political efficacy as a mechanism linking the use of social media to political
participation. Specifically, we argue that (1) the effect of the information-oriented
use of social media on political participation is positively mediated through the user’s
online political efficacy and (2) this mediation effect is only significant in the case of
online political participation. We test these arguments within the framework of causal
mediation analysis proposed by Imai et al. using data collected from the 2015 Taiwan
Communication Survey.
