Reeher Outline

Syracuse University (Maxwell School) “Maxwell Poll on Civic Engagement and Inequality”
• Occasional (Less then “daily or several times a week”) use of the internet to gather news (as opposed to either extreme [frequent or non-user]) is associated with higher levels of political activity (which includes activities such as contacting political officials, contributing money, attending events, voting etc.)

Levels of Participation (most to least):
Occasional > Frequent > Non-users

• Although we know that age (older=more active) and gender (male>female), this is not consistent with the conclusion of the study because the age with the most political activity is 53, which is also the average age of the non-user.
WHEN AGE, GENDER, INCOME AND EDUCATION ARE CONTROLLED THE ASSOCIATION HOLDS UP

• Possible explanations for this relationship:
o 1) People who are only occasional users are more active politically to begin with, they are more traditional in their orientation towards the internet (using it as ONE source of information and not the only one), at the same time the non-user is likely as less active to begin with.
o 2) While the occasional user is the most active, the internet has facilitated higher political activity (i.e. the occasional user is using the internet as one source to increase his/her activity, while it is still only ONE source and therefore the frequent user will automatically be less active then the occasional user)

2004 report from the Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet called “Political Influentials Online in the 2004 Presidential Election”
• 10% of the population influence their fellow citizens in a variety of areas, and 69% of the people who showed high levels of internet-based political activity.

NOTE THAT THE FIRST STUDY FOCUSED ON THE INTERNET BEING THE INDIVIDUAL’S SOURCE OF NEWS, WHILE THE IPDI STUDY FOCUSED ON THE INDIVIDUAL’S GENERAL INTERNET USE

These findings could be very flawed because:
• 1) The number of people polled (only 600) is very small.
• 2) The 2 studies were taken at different times
• 3) The connection between these 2 things is hard to find and they may (or possible probably) be completely independent of one another.