The contextual theory of political participation in non-electoral politics developed in this paper supposes that more open political opportunity structure of a respective state increases both, the individual non-electoral participation and mobilization into this participation, since the decentralized political institutions send a message that more access points to influence politics are availab...

In this article, the role of Sociological Factors affecting youthparticipation in the cities of Mazandaran province has been investigated. The theoretical framework and theoretical model were presented using theorist's theory such as Lipset, Weber, Perry, and so on. This research was conducted through a survey method, formal and structural validity was used and reliability was also obtained usi...

Online political debate is increasing in importance, both as a real world phenomenon and as an object of scientific study. We present a survey study exploring people's motivations for engaging in online political debate and how such debate may impact their general political engagement. The survey was conducted among 90 participants of an online environment for political debate hosted by one of ...

The objective of this article is to examine how the inequalities of participation in network society governmental systems affect the extent that individuals are empowered or disempowered within those systems. By using published data in conjunction with theories of communication, a critical secondary data analysis was conducted. This critical analysis argues that the Digital Divide involves issu...

Turnout as the most frequent form of political participation is often supposed to be linked to a relevant degree of political information of citizens. Non-voting on the other hand, is often assumed to be a decision caused by indifference or uninformedness. These stereotypes notwithstanding, there may be good reasons for informed citizens not to cast a vote, just as uninformed citizens may have ...

Much research in the communication and political science fields—political communication research being no exception—seeks to establish the extent to which certain communication-related variables (e.g., exposure to political debates, the tone of news coverage about politicians, or the diversity in opinions of those with whom one talks about politics) have effects on various political outcomes (e...