Young Immigrants’ Political Participation on the Internet in Germany : Comparing...
18
Click here to load reader
-
Upload
koulutus-ja-kehittaemiskeskus-palmenia -
Category
Education
-
view
456 -
download
1
description
Spaiser Viktoria, Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology, University of Bielefeld Germany“Young immigrants´ political participation on the Internet in Germany”I will discuss results from my research project on young immigrants’ political participation on the Internet in Germany with a focus on young people with Turkish and East-European background. Statistical analysis on the basis of survey data was conducted. It compared three groups: ethnic Germans, young people with Turkish and East-European (former Soviet-Union and Poland) origin. Young people with Turkish background turned out to be particularly politically active online, while young East-Europeans are least participative on the Internet. Statistical models show that this is on the one hand related to the social context, which is rather politicized in the case of Turkish respondents. On the other hand young people with Turkish background seem to be more prone to become politically active on the Internet due to their grievances caused by discrimination experiences. In combination with strong political efficacy grievance drives these young people to take up action online. Additionally, the models reveal other important factors to explain political participation on the Internet, like Internet skills. Altogether, the results suggest that disadvantaged immigrant groups are not necessarily constrained by the so-called digital divide. They even may use the Internet for political empowerment under certain conditions.
Transcript of Young Immigrants’ Political Participation on the Internet in Germany : Comparing...
YOUNG IMMIGRANTS’ POLITICAL
PARTICIPATION ON THE INTERNET IN
GERMANY : COMPARING GERMAN-EAST-EUROPEANS AND
GERMAN-TURKS
Viktoria Spaiser
International Joint Workshop on Immigrant Inclusion by E-
Participation, Helsinki
Outline
1. Introduction
2. Theory
3. Methods and Data
4. Results
4.1. Political Online Participation – Excerpt
4.2. Online and Offline Political Participation
4.3. Political Online Participation & Gender
4.4. Political Online Participation & Education
4.5. Model for young people from East-Europe
4.6. Model for young people from Turkey
5. Conclusions
Introduction
• digital divide vs. digital empowerment of
immigrant groups
• (digital) political integration of immigrants
• Immigrants’ agendas in the political long tail?
• Do only immigrant elites participate online?
Theory Political participation on the Internet:
1. Information activities online: e.g. reading online
news
2. Communication activities online: e.g. political
online-debates, writing political blogs, networking,
coordinating political activities, …
3. Participation activities online: e.g. protest email
campaigns, online petitions, digital civil
disobedience,…
Theoretical Background
Theory-synthesis of rational-choice and resource
models to explain political online participation →
Factors of influence:
• Political discontentment and/or grievance (relative
deprivation, discrimination experience)
• Political efficacy
• Social incentives / social capital: young people’s
socio-political milieu
• Education
• Internet skills
Data & Methodology
• Survey-Data , N= 2,082 (ages of 14 to 26), German
respondent (n=771) left out for this analysis
• Survey in school classes, including all types of
German schools
• Survey from November 2009 – March 2010 in four
German cities Bielefeld, Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt
→ clustered sample
Data & Methodology
Two groups, based on origin
1. Young East-Europeans, mainly from Poland
and former Soviet Union, n=221
2. Young people with Turkish origins, n=497
Data & Methodology
Statistical Methodology:
• Descriptive statistics (means, frequencies)
• Variance-Analyses (Eta)
• Structural Equation Models (SEM)
• Missing Data handled with Full Information
Maximum Likelihood
Results: Political Online Participation
Immi-
grants
East-
Europe
Turkey
online
news
at least
rarely 92% 92.8% 92.5%
online
debates
at least
once 37.9% 32% 42.3%
online
content
at least
once 21% 18.4% 23.4%
coordina-
ting action
at least
infrequently 68% 56.4% 74.3%
protest
at least
once 20.3% 17.8% 20.8%
On-/Offline Participation
On-/Offline Participation
Which political issues are related to intense
political Internet usage?
• Internet freedom/preventing Internet censorship
• Data security/ (digital) civil rights
• Fundamental political changes in Germany
• Anti-racism/ anti-fascism
• Human rights
• Supporting marginalized groups
• Intercultural dialogue (German-Turks)
Gender
Significance of gender differences: Eta Immigrants: 0.130**; Eta Turkey: 0.133*; Eta East-Europe: n.s. **: p < 0.01 (ANOVA) *: p < 0.05 (ANOVA)
Education
Socioeconomic Status
Significance of socio-economic status: all Etas are n.s.
apart from Eta East-Europe: 0.173* with p < 0.05
Significance of socio-economic status: all Etas are n.s. apart from Eta
East-Europe: 0.173* with p < 0.05
Model:
German-East-Europeans
Model: German-Turks
Some additional notes
• Surprising that German-Turks are more active
politically on the Internet than German-East-
Europeans, because
– On average lower Internet skills: Tur.: M=1.38, SD=0.67
vs. East: M=1.47, SD=0.70
– Related to lower socioeconomic status: Tur.: M=46.67,
SD=13.12 vs. East: M=56.90, SD=13.74
– But German-Turks included in rather politized milieus:
Tur.: M=1.70, SD=0.93 vs. East: M=1.21, SD=0.71
– Therefore higher level of political efficacy: Tur.: M=1.44,
SD=0.76 vs. East: M=1.21, SD=0.80
– Finally, stronger incentives
Conclusions
• Immigrants use the Internet for political purposes to raise
their voice, therefore, e-Participation is a chance
• However, different immigrant groups have different
incentives, backgrounds, resources and therefore e-
participation needs
• Bottom-up approach: immigrant communities build cyber-
spaces for participation themselves. Authorities, politicians
etc. should go to this spaces and listen to the voices; more
important than producing new spaces for immigrants from
above
• Still (digital) divides: e.g. women, Internet skills (necessary to
find ways to reduce Internet skills discrepancies) to avoid an
establishment of second-level digital (democratic) divide
