The Influence of Citizenship Norms and Media Use on Different Modes of Political Participation in the US
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032321717720374 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321717720374
Political Studies
2017, Vol. 65(4) 805 –823
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321717720374
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The Influence of Citizenship
Norms and Media Use on
Different Modes of Political
Participation in the US
Lauren Copeland1 and Jessica T Feezell2
Abstract
Studies demonstrate that citizenship norms and media use are important predictors of political
behavior. However, it remains unclear how norms and patterns of media use influence different
modes of political participation—both directly and in tandem. Here, we leverage original US
survey data (N = 2200) to clarify how people’s attitudes about what it means to be a “good citizen”
inform how they participate in politics, and whether certain types of media use moderate these
relationships. In contrast to previous studies, we find that actualizing norms are associated with
electoral, non-electoral, and individualized modes of political participation, but dutiful norms
are not. In addition, although digital and traditional media use have distinct relationships with
participation, there is little moderating influence. Collectively, these findings raise questions about
whether the boundaries between dutiful and actualizing norms—and electoral and non-electoral
participation, respectively—are still relevant in the contemporary media environment.
Keywords
citizenship norms, political participation, civic engagement, digital media, Internet
Accepted: 3 April 2017
Social scientists have long been interested in why some people are more likely than others
to participate in politics. In addition to the tried and true predictors of political participa-
tion, such as education and political interest (Schlozman et al., 2012; Verba et al., 1995),
additional purchase in this area has come from understanding how citizenship norms and
patterns of media use influence participation (Bennett, 2008; Dalton, 2006, 2008a,
2008b). However, it remains unclear how norms and patterns of media use influence dif-
ferent modes of participation—both directly and in tandem. In this article, we clarify how
people’s attitudes about what it means to be a “good citizen” inform how they participate
1Department of Political Science, Baldwin Wallace University, Berea, OH, USA
2Department of Political Science, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Corresponding author:
Lauren Copeland, Department of Political Science, Baldwin Wallace University, Berea, OH 44017, USA.
Email: lcopelan@bw.edu
720374PSX0010.1177/0032321717720374Political StudiesCopeland and Feezell
research-article2017
Article
806 Political Studies 65 (4)
in politics, as well as whether certain types of media use moderate the relationship
between citizenship norms and political behavior. This line of inquiry is doubly important
in light of changing trends in political participation over time.
In recent years, and in response to larger debates about the extent to which people
participate in politics, researchers have argued that citizenship norms, or “attitudes
towards the role of the individual in the political system” (Dalton, 2006: 2), influence
how people participate in politics. These accounts differentiate between two broad
categories of citizenship norms: dutiful norms and “engaged” (Dalton, 2008a, 2008b),
“self-actualizing” (Bennett, 2008, 2012), or “critical” (Norris, 1999, 2011) norms.
According to these accounts, dutiful citizens are more likely to engage in electoral
politics because they have strong ties to the state and a high sense of civic duty.
Conversely, actualizing citizens are more likely to engage in non-electoral participa-
tion because they have a weaker allegiance to the state and view politics in a much
more individualized way.1
However, evidence linking citizenship norms to political behavior is mixed (see, for
example, Bolzendahl and Coffé, 2013), and some studies challenge whether citizens fit
neatly into typologies of dutiful and actualizing norms (see, for example, Hooghe et al.,
2014). These studies raise questions about whether dutiful and actualizing norms map
neatly onto participation in electoral and non-electoral contexts, respectively.
Another puzzle in the literature concerns whether citizenship norms are related to
media use, as well as whether norms and media use might work together to influence dif-
ferent modes of participation. Some scholars theorize that dutiful and actualizing citizen-
ship norms have corresponding forms of media use that reinforce participation in electoral
and non-electoral modes of participation, respectively (Bennett, 2008; Bennett et al.,
2011; Shehata et al., 2015). Whereas dutiful citizens should be more likely to obtain
information from traditional media outlets (e.g. print newspapers and television) and to
engage in electoral participation, actualizing citizens should be more likely to obtain
political information through digital media and to engage in non-electoral participation
(Bennett, 2008; Bennett et al., 2011; Bennett and Segerberg, 2012b; Feezell et al., 2016).
Nevertheless, the interactions between norms, media use, and political participation
remain largely unexplored.
In this study, we examine these relationships in the United States. First, we revisit the
relationship between citizenship norms and political behavior. Second, we ask whether
people who obtain political information through traditional, one-way forms of media are
more likely to engage in electoral participation, and conversely, whether people who use
digital or social media to obtain political information are more likely to engage in non-
electoral participation. Finally, we examine the potential for citizenship norms and char-
acteristically similar forms of media use to work together to reinforce the likelihood of
engaging in electoral behavior (among dutiful citizens) and in non-electoral behavior
(among actualizing citizens). Using an original survey of US adults (N = 2200), we find
that actualizing citizens are more likely to engage in both dutiful and actualizing forms of
political participation. Additionally, digital media use predicts higher levels of actualizing
participation, but not dutiful participation. Third, and contrary to theoretical expectations,
traditional media use predicts both dutiful and actualizing participation. Finally, we test
for a moderating effect between citizenship norms and media use in predicting corre-
sponding forms of participation but only find a small relationship between norms and
media use.
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