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fee, 2002) like selecting consciously which type of media to use (Buckingham, 1997). As
social conditions change, people need to adapt to those changes. Therefore, political
socialization is believed to be a life-long process (Sears & Brown, 2003).
There are various arguments about which activities can be considered as civic en-
gagement (Cicognani, Zani, Fournier, Gavray & Born, 2012; Da Silva, Sanson, Smart &
Toumbourou, 2004; Pancer, Pratt, Hunsberger & Alisat, 2007). These arguments mostly
result from the differentiation of political activities from civic activities. In this study, civ-
ic engagement is defined as encompassing both political and civic activities which are
conducted by citizens to solve social problems and participate in community decisions
(Youniss et al., 2002).
Civic engagement has been examined in relation to socio-demographic variables, various
psychological and social variables such as identity development and social responsibility
(Crocetti, Jahromi & Meeus, 2012; Pancer et al., 2007). It was found that men engaged
in more civic activities that women (Andolina, Jenkins, Zukin & Keeter, 2003; Hao, Wen
& George, 2014) and civic engagement level in adolescence was strongly and positively
related to engaging in more political and civic activities (Kirlin, 2003; Youniss, McLellan,
Su & Yates, 1999). Civic engagement has been demonstrated to contribute to political
and social development of young people (Bobek, Zaff, Li & Lerner, 2009; Yates & Youniss,
1996; Youniss et al., 2002).
The studies on effects of media use on political socialization focus on the effects of fre-
quency of media use and types of media on the development of social skills, political atti-
tudes and behaviors (Newton, 1999; McLeod & Shah, 2009; Shah, 1998). Two contrasting
arguments have been proposed regarding effects of media use, one of them underlining
the negative effects of mass media (Putnam, 1995; 2000) and the other emphasizing pos-
itive effects of media (Newton, 1999). Many studies (Delli Carpini, 2000; Shah, McLeod
& Yoon, 2001) have shown that mass media use leads to increase in civic engagement,
political knowledge and communication.
It is also argued that how mass media influences political socialization depends on media
use purposes (Norris, 1996; Shah, McLeod & Yoon, 2001). The positive effects have been
observed for media use only with knowledge purposes (Boulianne, 2009; Shah, Cho,
Eveland & Kwak, 2005; McLeod, 2000) not with recreational purposes (Putnam, 2000).
Besides, different types of media have different effects on political socialization (Shah,
McLeod & Yoon, 2001). For example, civic engagement was found be negatively related
to watching news on television (Shah, 1998) but positively related to reading newspaper
(Norris, 1996). It was also demonstrated that using the Iinternet to follow news (Skoric
& Poor, 2013) and for political communication (Shah et al., 2005) led to higher civic en-
gagement.
Method
The research group consisted of 549 young people (323 women, 226 men) between the
ages of 25 and 30. Most of the participants (79.8%) were employed and 8.6% were stu-
