What do Citizens Know About the Internet and Why Does It Matter? Technological Skills and Political Engagement in the Web 2.0 Era

How are Internet skills impacting online forms of political participation? While political scientists have explained traditional forms of participation through a set of resources, motivations and opportunities, a critical resource – Internet skills – is neglected in studies on web-based forms of engagement. Nevertheless, whereas the opportunities to access the Internet are now widespread in most industrialized societies, unequally distributed technological skills may remain a significant factor of digital divide. Moreover, as Litt (2013) pointed out in a recent review, surveys on Internet skills have been largely based on convenient samples (e.g., students) instead of representative samples. Following Delli Carpini and Keeter’s (1996) seminal model explaining political knowledge by motivations, abilities, and opportunities (MAO), this paper examines the predictors of the level of Internet skills, then its consequences on new forms of political participation through the Web and social networking sites (SNS). To be more specific, the paper will use multi-stage analyses to test the mediating effect of Internet skills on well-known predictors of political participation (e.g., sociodemographics). Our data come from two representative samples of Canadians surveyed in 2014 by phone (n=2021) and by Internet (n=3000) as part of the Online Citizenship Canada project. Internet skills are measured with batteries of questions on respondents’ familiarity with various Internet-related terms, as recommended by Hargittai and Hsieh (2012), as well as self-assessment of respondents’ general Internet expertise. Also, our surveys capture a wide range of conventional (i.e., party- and campaign-oriented) and non-conventional forms of political participation, both offline and online, including specific forms of participation through two SNS, Facebook and Twitter. The role of Internet skills should be further assessed to better understand how different online participation patterns compare with offline behaviours.