Facebook and political engagement: A study of online political group membership and offline political engagement

摘要

In what ways do online groups help to foster political engagement among citizens? We employ a multi-method design incorporating content analysis of online political group pages and original survey research of university undergraduates (n - 455) to assess the relationship between online political group membership and political engagement-measured through political knowledge and political participation surrounding the 2008 election. We find that participation in online political groups is strongly correlated with offline political participation, as a potential function of engaging members online. However, we fail to confirm that there is a corresponding positive relationship between participation in online political groups and political knowledge, likely due to low quality online group discussion.