Weblogs, traditional sources online and political participation: an assessment of how the internet is changing the political environment

553 Weblogs, traditional sources online and political participation: an assessment of how the internet is changing the political environment Abstract Research has shown consistently that news consumption both online and offline is related positively to interpersonal discussion, political involvement and political engagement. However, little consideration has been given to the role that new sources of information may exert on different forms of political engagement. Based on secondary analysis of data collected by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, this article contrasts the influence of traditional sources of information online with that of emergent sources (blogs) in predicting further political discussion, campaigning and participation in both the online and the offline domains. The results show that the use of traditional sources online is related positively to different types of political engagement, both online and offline. Most interestingly, the article finds that blog use emerges as an equally important predictor of political engagement in the online domain. 554 Its analyses provide support for the contention that asserts the democratic potential of the internet. INTRODUCTION Advances in computer mediated communication (CMC) continue to feed a burgeoning debate within the social sciences and the humanities over the process of technological and social change, and the implications that technology use has for social interaction as well as for community life overall. This debate has been characterized in terms of utopian versus dystopian views of CMC, and has been particularly acute for the internet and some of its applications (see for example Graber et al., 2004; Katz and Rice, 2002). Despite initial concerns with the possibility that certain communication technologies would actually increase social isolation, as Castells (2001) points out, most of this debate took place in the early stages of internet use before widespread diffusion of the technology, and therefore most claims were not based on a substantial body of empirical evidence. As empirical evidence accumulates, the internet is shown to have to had reinforcing effects on information-seeking and sociability. Recent findings confirm that certain web uses contribute to civic engagement and trust (Shah et al., 2005), increased volunteerism (Jennings and Zeitner, 2003), enhanced personal interactions (Hampton and Wellman, 2003), and increased news consumption (Althaus and Tewksbury, 2000). More interestingly, it appears that the much heralded information revolution and the abundance of information facilitated by CMC (Bimber, 2003; Rheingold, 2002) is not based solely on the migration of traditional news sources online. It also …