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Online mobilization in comparative perspective: Digital appeals and political engagement in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom
journal contribution
posted on 2018-01-25, 11:14 authored by Cristian VaccariThis study analyzes the relationship between online voter mobilization and political engagement in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom during the 2014 European election campaign. Internet surveys of samples representatives of these countries’ populations with Internet access show that respondents who received an invitation to vote for a party or candidate via e-mail or social media engaged in a significantly higher number of political activities than those who did not. Moreover, the relationship between mobilization and engagement was stronger among those who followed the campaign less attentively, as well as in countries where overall levels of engagement with the campaign were lower (Germany and the United Kingdom) than where they were higher (Italy). These findings indicate that online mobilization may contribute to closing gaps in political engagement at both individual and aggregate levels, and thus suggest that digital media may contribute to reviving democratic citizenship.
Funding
This research was supported by the Italian Ministry of Education “Future in Research 2012” initiative (project code RBFR12BKZH) for the project titled “Building Inclusive Societies and a Global Europe Online: Political Information and Participation on Social Media in Comparative Perspective” (http://www.webpoleu.net).
History
Published in
Political CommunicationVolume
34Issue
1Pages
69 - 88Citation
VACCARI, C., 2017. Online mobilization in comparative perspective: Digital appeals and political engagement in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Political Communication, 34 (1), pp. 69-88.Publisher
© Taylor & FrancisVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Acceptance date
2016-05-25Publication date
2016-10-25Notes
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Political Communication on 25 Oct 2016, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2016.1201558ISSN
1058-4609eISSN
1091-7675Publisher version
Language
- en