Whether seen from a “minimalist” or a “maximalist” model of democratic participation, the issue of the role of the internet in facilitating citizens’ participation in the public sphere has acquired a permanent place in the academic and public debate. Particular attention has been devoted to young people and their engagement with the internet and digital media. While a consistent body of writing...

Political communication researchers have devoted a great deal of attention to the role of political advertising, the Internet, and political discussion in civic and political life. In this article, we integrate and extend this research by developing a campaign communication mediation model of civic and campaign participation. Two data sets are merged for this inquiry: (a) content-coded ad-buy d...

Collaborative approaches to community health improvement such as healthy cities and communities have the potential to strengthen community capacity through leadership development. The healthy cities and communities process orients existing local leadership to new community problem-solving strategies and draws out leadership abilities among residents not previously engaged in civic life. In an e...

The purpose of this study was to examine the links between identity (statuses and processes) and adolescent civic engagement (volunteer and political participation). Participants were 392 Italian high school students (42% males) aged 14-20 years (M(age) = 16.23 years; SD(age) = 1.53) who completed a self-report questionnaire. First, using a person-centered approach, we found that achieved adole...

This article explores the impact of organizational involvement on political participation in mainland China. The formal organizations in China today differ in the nature of organization and membership, which in turn lead to different effect on political participation. In contrast with the Communist Party and the “mass organizations,” the reemerging civic associations have more voluntary and act...

This article proposes a model of home environment and school climate on the participation of ninth graders based on 1999 Civic Education Study data of students in social actions. This study examined ninth graders’ participation in social actions by means of a questionnaire; the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling methodology. The objective was to design a model, using two exog...

This comparative study of young adults in an established democracy (America) and transitional democracy (Hong Kong) analyzed the impact of political efficacy on the relationship between Internet/Facebook use on political and civic participation. Regression analyses in both samples showed that Facebook use consistently predicted both types of participation. Moreover, there were significant negat...

As they relate to user-generated content on the internet, civic engagement and psychological empowerment have received significant interest in recent years. While past studies have examined online civic participation and political empowerment, the way in which civic engagement offline and content generation online are related to psychological empowerment has not been thoroughly explored. The pu...

Based on an analysis of several municipal e-participation experiences, and of the virtual environments used in these, this article covers key aspects to be considered when designing an electronic Internet-based system for participation at the municipal level, whose aim would be to enhance communication between public officials and citizens while streamlining municipal civic participation and co...