Politics 2.0: The Multifaceted Effect of Broadband Internet on Political Participation

Abstract

We investigate the causal impact of broadband Internet on political participation using data from Italy. We show that this impact varies across different forms of political engagement and over time. Initially, broadband had a negative effect on turnout in national elections, driven by increased abstention of ideologically extreme voters. Meanwhile, however, broadband fostered other forms of online and offline participation. Over time, the negative effect was reverted due to the emergence of new political entrepreneurs who used the Internet to convert the initial "exit" back into "voice". Overall, these nuanced effects underscore the general equilibrium dynamic induced by the Internet.

Mediating the contributions of Facebook to political participation in Italy and the UK: the role of media and political landscapes

“…Considering Italians' political disenchantment (Almond and Verba, 1963;Curran et al, 2014;Donovan and Onofri, 2008), confirmed also in the present research, Campante et al (2013) employ the notions of voice and exit developed by Hirschman (1970) to analyse the success of the M5S and their usage of digital technologies. According to their analysis, citizens particularly dissatisfied with mainstream Italian politics have used the Internet as an exit option to express their political views, and have voiced their displeasure by casting protest votes.…”

“…Campante et al (2013) confirm that the influence of the Internet on citizens' political participation can change because of the activity of an online grassroots protest movement, as the M5S was in its early form, which takes advantage of digital technologies to engage disenchanted and demobilized citizens-a similar process was observed in Spain with Podemos which capitalized on the electorate's dissatisfaction with Spanish politics (Rodon and Hierro, 2016) and adopted digital media and networks, integrating them with local offline activism and television (Chadwick and Stromer-Galley, 2016), to engage and mobilize supporters. The Internet is the M5S's major organizational and communication tool (Bordignon and Ceccarini, 2013), with the blog beppegrillo.it operating as their main house organ (Tipaldo and Pisciotta, 2014).…”

“…According to their analysis, citizens particularly dissatisfied with mainstream Italian politics have used the Internet as an exit option to express their political views, and have voiced their displeasure by casting protest votes. Campante et al (2013) reason that the M5S embodied the potential of digital technologies to transition from exit devices into novel sources of voice within mainstream politics.…”

The effect of the internet on voting behavior

“…However, this negative effect on voter turnout appears to have been reversed during the subsequent phase of the internet, which is characterized by the ability of people to create and share content online, through social media, and also blogs, open-source software, and so on. [2]. The rise of social media during this phase was additionally supported by the rise of mobile internet technologies and smart phones.…”

“…Research on voting behavior and the internet suggests a negative effect on voter turnout during the "initial phase" of the internet in Germany and Italy [1], [2]. The "initial phase" refers to the early years of the world wide web before the rise of social media at the end of the 2000s.…”