Talking as communicators: Effects of perceived media importance, group communication, and government-citizen interaction on online political discussion

Abstract

Most early research on political discussion emphasizes the effects of media use and peer citizen communication on frequency of political discussion. Differing from that, this study makes two distinctions to the research on predicting online political discussion. First, it provides major support for a new theoretical model accounting for the relationship among online political discussion, perceived importance of new media, group communication, and government-citizen online interaction. Second, it emphasizes two overlooked factors that influence political discussion: one is the direct interaction between individual citizen and the state; the other is the cognitive aspect of media use—perceived media importance—in political discussion. By applying structural equation modeling to analyze the data from 2008 Civic Engagement of Pew Internet & American Life Project, this study reveals that both the perceived importance of new media and government-citizen online interaction have positive effects on the frequency of online political discussion.