Politieke mobilisatie en nieuwe communicatietechnologie: een multilevel studie van de digital divideStefaan Walgrave, Marc Hooghe, Lance Bennett, Dietlind Stolle
met medewerking with Jeroen Van Laer, Sara Vissers, Ruud Wouters, Valérie-Ann Maheo en Christian Breunig
The basic, underlying question in this book is whether the Internet is expected to have a positive or negative impact on the democratic character of participation and mobilization in Western democracies. This book develops a more comprehensive assessment of the democratic potential of ICT, by incorporating individual level, organizational level, and political system level perspectives.
The book consists of a series of substudies tackling each of these three levels: (1) An overview of inequalities with regard to individual Internet use and its consequences for political participation (micro); (2) An analysis of the way social movement organizations use ICT to develop coalitions and to reach out to potential participations (meso); (3) A study on Internet as a campaign tool for political parties (micro); (4) A study on the effectiveness of Internet mobilization for social and political organizations (micro); (5) A comparative study on the way social movements use ICT for transnational mobilization (meso); (6) A policy oriented study on the organization of e-government as a way to support the communication flow between citizens and the political system (macro).
In term of approach, the study is internationally innovative through the conceptualization of both the independent variable, i.e. ICT use, and the dependent variable, i.e. frequency/ kind of Internet use, across different levels. Together with the comparative approach the researchers are able to give a comprehensive answer to the question how ICT has an impact on democratic participation and mobilization.
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