Just presented at the NCA 2012 Convention, Orlando FL, Top Papers in Political Communication panel. This study takes an MSD approach to look at the impact of the Internet on political efficacy. The results show that online political efficacy is associated with the perceived comprehensiveness and credibility of online news. Efficacy is also linked to the ability of online tools to help people maintain ideologically homogeneous social networks.
After submitting an early draft to NCA, I worked on revising/rewriting the paper with Sandra Ball-Rokeach, the mastermind behind media system dependency theory. The updated version of the article co-authored with Sandra will be published as a book chapter.
The dataset used in the analysis was collected in 2010 by the Center for the Digital Future (where I was a research assistant at the time). Thanks are due to Peter Monge, Michael Suman, and Robert Lunn who provided helpful feedback on early drafts of the paper.
- Download the NCA version of the study: Political Efficacy on the Internet [PDF]
- Download the revised paper: Political Efficacy on the Internet, with Sandra Ball-Rokeach [PDF]
- Download the NCA presentation [PPT PDF]
And here’s what I got to take home from NCA:
