We came unequal into this digital world, and unequal shall we go out of it? Digital media and participatory inequality in Europe

Few questions have preoccupied political scientists more than that of participatory inequality. For more than six decades, research findings have shown that the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and political participation is a powerful and consistent one – those with higher SES are more likely to participate in politics. In addition, studies investigating the role of citizenship norms and cultural values have demonstrated that especially value orientations provide a link between structural features and actual behaviour. As a result, political participants, especially those who engage through non-institutional avenues, support postmaterialist values and “engaged” (as opposed to allegiant, duty-based) citizenship norms. The swift integration of digital media in everyday (political) life over the last decade, and especially the widespread use of social networking sites, has led to the expectation that these tools can ameliorate, or even disrupt, traditional patterns of participatory inequality. This could happen either through facilitating pre-existing forms of participation which would be supported online – but with far lower costs - or through the creation of new, digitally-enabled, networked forms of participation. Due to their preference for non-institutional and expressive forms of participation, especially postmaterialists and those holding engaged citizenship norms are likely to take advantage of such new participatory avenues. Although evidence from recent studies based on U.S. samples do demonstrate weak counter-stratification effects when it comes to age, less is known about whether digitally networked forms of participation are participatory avenues primarily for those with specific value orientations. Moreover, most European countries enjoy far less digital media adoption, have political elites that are less inclined to make as sophisticated and active use of digital media as politicians in the U.S. (which could stimulate citizens’ online engagement) and, especially in post-communist societies, privacy concerns in relation to digital media use are particularly heightened. In this study we use nationally representative data from three economically, politically and culturally different European countries – Germany, Greece and the Czech Republic – to study the extent to which the use of social media for political participation levels the participatory playing field. Our analysis allows us, firstly, to investigate whether digitally networked participation is primarily an avenue for those who hold postmaterialist values and engaged citizenship norms. Secondly, we consider the expected counter-stratification effects with regards to SES, education, age and gender. Our findings show that, although differences between findings for the three countries are evident, social media do not play an equalizing role when it comes to participatory inequality in Europe.