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JOURNAL OF YOUTH RESEARCHES
The Internet and Political Participation: An Evaluation on Turkish Youth
age groups behave similarly. Young people who are “Not in Education, Employment, or
Training” (NEET) participate in online political activities less than students and working
youngsters. The young people graduated from high school or university engage in online
political participation compared with others and this validates the resources approach.
All models show that resources approach is valid to a large extent. Youngsters with more
resources such as education, income and leisure time, have higher scores for technology
use which has a great effect on the level of political participation in the Internet. It can
be stated that the use of technology has an important mediation role on the behavioral
dimension of political participation in the Internet; that is to say, the ones who have more
resources such as education, income and leisure time use technology more. Considering
the mediation role of political participation, we can claim such a role only “partially”.
When it comes to “perception dimension” we cannot talk about a gender gap but youn-
gsters between ages 18-21 have higher scores for perception dimension compared with
other age groups. There is almost a linear relation between young people’s average per-
ception dimension scores but there is no such observation considering the employment
status. Household income level, on the other hand, has an effect on this variable and
indicates lower online political participation scores for the ones in the lowest 20 percent
income level.
As a result, our research study conducted with 1804 youngsters in January 2016 has
revealed findings that validate the “reinforcement hypothesis” approach. Both behavioral
and perceptual dimensions are taken into consideration and observed that the determi-
nants of these two dimensions exhibit difference. Bivariate analysis from the behavioral
dimension reveals that men compared with women, the educated compared with the
uneducated and lastly students and employed compared with NEET exhibit more par-
ticipation. The young people from highest and lowest income levels participate online
political activities compared with others. From perceptual dimension, the conviction that
the Internet is a useful tool for political participation becomes more popular as the income
level increases. For both dimensions technology use has a mediating role.
These findings show that although the rate of access to the Internet has increased a lot,
opportunities for political participation is limited to the youngsters who are more compe-
tent in technology use, which leads us to resources approach. At this point, the Internet
becomes more of a tool that reinforces discrepancies rather than being an inclusive/
equalizer tool. Although it is apparent that the penetration of the Internet of course is not
able to establish democracy by itself, it is acceptable that it provides significant tools
regarding political participation. As a consequence, it is important to ensure equal access
to the Internet and to eliminate problems considering the stratification in technology use
so that the Internet as a tool for higher political participation and a democracy with higher
quality can be realizable.
