Thesis
The role of communication in political participation: exploring the social normative and cognitive processes related to political behaviors
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2009
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/103468
Abstract
This study develops a social normative and cognitive mediation model of political participation to simultaneously examine the roles of political news media, online citizen media, online political interaction, and offline political discussions in shaping political participation. One Web survey was conducted in one large northwestern university community with a probability-based sample including undergraduate, graduate students, and university employees (N=1,292). Structural equation models reveal that political interest is the strongest predictor of political participation, but its effect is completely mediated by communication activities and social normative and cognitive processes. News media have no significant effect on political participation. The positive influence of online citizen media on political participation is completely mediated by political interpersonal communication and social normative and cognitive processes. Both online political interaction and offline political discussion exert strong direct and indirect influences on political participation. As social psychological mediating factors, subjective norms of political participation, perception of peers' political participation, political information efficacy, and political external efficacy are positively associated with political participation. In addition, different communication activities have their unique contributions to these social psychological factors. The present suggests that driven by individuals' political predispositions and motivations, different communication activities exert their special influences in shaping political participation via unique social normative and cognitive processes. Further, these findings empirically and theoretically support the original "orientation-communication-social and cognitive influence-responses" model advanced in this study as a new communication mediation model to better understand the social psychological processes related to political communication in the new information era.
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Details
- Title
- The role of communication in political participation
- Creators
- Yushu Zhou
- Contributors
- Douglas Blanks Hindman (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Edward R. Murrow College of Communication
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; Pullman, Wash. :
- Identifiers
- 99900524876501842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis