The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics Vol 3(1) Spring 1998 Editorial Pippa Norris and David Jones Virtual Democracy It is a familiar observation in conversations at every dinner table that Internet use has been exploding, at least in industrialized societies. If not yet a mass media, it soon will be. The number of Americans using online and Internet services has been doubling every twelve months for the past two years. In the US in 1997 about one in seven adults logged onto the net every month, rising to a fifth of all full-time workers, and a third of all college graduates (1). Fifty-five million adult Americans (28%) have Internet access and a thirty-seven million (19%) use it (2). Growing use has also been reported in Europe. In Britain, for example, an NOP survey in June 1997 found that out of an adult population of about 48 million, six million used the Internet in the previous year, while three million used the World Wide Web (3). The more that the Internet takes off, the more speculation and hot air arises concerning its political consequences. For enthusiasts such as Nicholas Negroponte (1995) and Michael Dertouzos (1997) virtual democracy promises a cornucopia of empowerment in a digital world. Yet others, including naysayers, Luddites and flat-earthers, take a skeptical view about the implications for public life and civic engagement (McChesney 1997). In the midst of the rhetoric and conjecture, which too often seems to boil down to whether the observer is personally a technophile or 1
technophobe, it is difficult to distinguish any hard evidence either way (Neuman 1998). Too often sweeping generalizations about the effects of the digital age seem to be made without distinguishing whether there is one experience of the Net, or perhaps many. Can the Internet be regarded as a single medium? Given the choices about where to go and what to do in the digital world, the question arises whether we have a shared experience of the Web at all. It is not like turning on the TV (although for that matter, in parenthesis, turning on the TV is no longer like turning on the TV). Some use the net for email, others for on-line research or electronic access to newspapers, radio and television, while others still seem to have the time to indulge in chat rooms, bulletin boards and games. Following classic studies by Verba et al. (Verba and Nie 1972; Verba, Nie and Kim 1978) we gradually came to understand that political participation was not a single but a multidimensional phenomenon. People who donate to campaigns, for example, or write to their congressional representative, are not necessarily involved in other dimensions like party or community activism. Perhaps, in a similar way, participation in virtual democracy on the net involves many different types of activism. Someone contacting Greenpeace, or reading party web pages, may be engaged in a different sort of activity to someone involved in political discussion groups or emailing colleagues about a community meeting. To explore this issue we can turn to evidence from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which has carried out some of the richest surveys of Internet users based on over-sampling the community of users in the United States (4). The June 1995 survey contained 997 online users, 2
drawn from a representative survey of the general population of 3,603. Users were questioned about a wide range of media habits including old and new media, as well as their political knowledge, efficacy and background. This survey allows us to explore, when people click online, what do they do politically? The survey asked users about a variety of activities, such as how often, if at all, people go online to get information about movies, travel or the Dow Jones, do research for work, chat to people in on-line forums, or engage in political discussion. People were questioned about fourteen different activities and we can look at the pattern of what was related to what by using factor analysis. The results revealed that there were typically four basic types of users (5). The first group were the researchers, who spent much time online doing research for work or school, and who also frequently emailed colleagues and friends, and used list-servers and the Web a great deal. Researchers, probably like you and me, commonly used the web in connection with their work. The second group were the home consumers, who typically used the Net for practical tasks like finding out information about travel, stock quotes and finances, hobbies, movies and restaurant reviews. Interestingly, this group was also most likely to shop online, and to go online often for news. The third group were the political expressives, who were most likely to engage in online discussions about politics or political activity, and to express opinions about a political or social issue on a bulletin board, on-line newsgroup or email list. Lastly there were the party-animals, going online for games and also entertainment information. Who typically fell into these categories? There were some plausible patterns, suggesting the factor analysis had picked up real differences between types of users. As might 3
be expected, researchers tended to be significantly better educated and more knowledgeable about politics (6). Consumers tended to be younger and more affluent. Party animals were often younger men. And the expressives engaged in political discussions were slightly more affluent than average. Overall the pattern shows that the social and political differences between users were less than the similarities in the social bias of all on-line users. What this simple typology suggests is that, while we may hope for a Virtual Democracy, with e-citizens becoming more politically engaged and informed, there are many different dimensions on the net. While some may choose to chat about Bill, Newt and the Budget, or, more realistically, the Unibomber, Louise Woodward and Di, this does not necessarily click the mouse of other types of users. Only the expressives were really engaged in a form of political activity which can claim to be distinctively new, like a town-hall meeting without the town-hall. But this group is a tiny minority. Researchers are usually getting the same old information but from a more convenient source. Emails simply displace letters (remember carbon paper?). Web pages displace reference books (remember libraries?). Electronic newspapers displace inky linotype. Communication flows through new channels, true. But so what? The activity of research probably remains recognizably familiar. The web won t yet write my book for me. Consumers and party animals are surfing the web for other interests, more often porn than politics. We all know that Americans can tune-out from public affairs on MTV or the Home Shopping channel. Given the fragmentation and choice of messages and activities available on the Net, users may never encounter politics in their web bookmarks of choice. In this sense, even if evolving into a mass media in terms of numbers, the Net may 4
never be a mass media in terms of a shared experience. Virtual Democracy looks more like anarchy than ABC News. 5
Notes (1)Statistical Abstract of the US, 1997, http:// www. census. gov/ population/ socdemo/ computer. (2)http:// www. mediamark. com/ pages/ cs_f97a.htm. (3) http:// www. maires. co. uk/ internet/ surveys/ in07.htm. (4) See http:// www. people-press. Org. The authors are most grateful to Andrew Kohut and the Pew Center for the People and the Press for release of this dataset. 6
(5)Table: Types of On-Line Users Type of activity Research Consumer Expressive Party animal Often online for email.705 Use list-servs.684 Often online for research.681 Use WWW.448 Often online for financial.688 info Often online for travel info.638 Often online for news.604 Shopped online.440 Often online for political.863 discussions Expressed opinion to bulletin.830 board or newsgroup Often online for games.826 Often online for entertainment info.417.564 Note: Principal Component Factor Analysis with varimax rotation with Kaiser normalization suppressing coefficients below.40. Source: The Pew Center for The People and The Press Technology and Online Use Survey 1995 Over-sample of on-line users N. 997. F/w 25 May-27 June 1995. (6) Table: Social and Political Predictors of Usage Research Consumers Expressive Party Animal Gender.06.09.03.11 Race.08.01.03.01 Education.11.06.05.06 Age.06.10.06.14 Income.04.09.09.01 Voted 94.06.01.04.01 Clinton/Bush 92.04.04.06.01 Political.11.09.05.02 Knowledge Party Id.01.12.04.04 R 2.05.06.03.04 Note: The figures represent ordinary least squared regression analysis with standardized beta coefficients. The figures in bold are statistically significant at the.05 level. Source: The Pew Center for The People and The Press Technology and Online Use Survey 1995 Over-sample of on-line users N. 997. F/w 25 May-27 June 1995. 7
Dertouzos, Michael (1997) What Will Be: How the New Information Marketplace will Change our Lives. San Francisco: Harper. McChesney, Robert W. 1997. Capitalism and the New Information Age. New York: Monthly Review Press. Negroponte, Nicholas (1995) Being Digital. New York: Knopf. Neuman, W. Russell (1998) The Global Impact of New Technologies in Doris Graber, Denis McQuail and Pippa Norris (eds.) The Politics of News: The News of Politics (Washington DC: CQ Press) Verba, Sidney, and Norman Nie (1972)Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality New York: Harper and Row. Verba, Sidney, Norman Nie and Jae-on Kim (1978) Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison New York: Cambridge University Press. 8