How widespread is online participation in politics?

As we have seen, the research field into participation within politics is by far the largest of all five areas identified. Indeed, participation on the Internet is frequently equated with political engagement. It is noticeable that there are pronounced regional differences across the realm of publication. For instance, by far the largest share of English-language literature deals primarily with studies conducted in English-speaking territories, while German publications focus on their own language area. It is quite rare for studies in the German language area to find any reception at all in English-language publications.

Most empirical studies indicate that political and civic engagement on the Internet is not particularly widespread (di Gennaro & Dutton, 2006). Nevertheless, the engagement does differ according to form and intensity of activities examined – and according to the country in question. A current study shows that 16% of the population in the United States have posted images or videos on political or civic topics in the last twelve months. Further, 34% of the US-American population has used the Net to perform at least one of the following four activities over the last twelve months: sign a petition, contact a member of parliament, write a reader’s letter or post a comment on a message or a blog post (Smith, 2013). One fifth of the population has participated in all of these forms over the last twelve months.

At the moment there are no matching figures available for Germany. The empirical evidence currently available suggests that in general, online political participation is not quite as widespread as it is in the United States: A study by Emmer et al. (2012), based on a representative sample of the population in 2010, shows that Germans are more likely to become involved outside of the Net than they are to do so online. The authors distinguish between political information, political discussion and political participation (or participatory communication). Low average values for activities such as discussion and participation suggest that most citizens are slow to engage in politics on the Internet. However, there was a pronounced rise in the level of activity observed between 2002 and 2010. Merely political participation in a narrower sense, including actions such as „signing online petitions“ or „writing reader’s letters“, showed stagnant values.

A representative study of the population conducted by the Allensbach Institute (IfD) in 2011 came to the conclusion that 70% of the population does not use the Internet for political participation. Roughly 20% shows limited political engagement – i.e., can be activated for selected topics. Merely 10% belongs to the „Political Net Activists“ (Köcher & Bruttel, 2011). The actual dispersion of specific activities analysed is usually in a single-digit percentage range. Only 7% of the population has at some time written an email to a member of parliament, while no more than 2% has used a blog on a personal homepage to express political opinions. The study shows that the most widespread forms of political engagement on the Internet are „taking part in an online petition“ (15%) and „taking part in a vote, e.g., on a current affairs site“ (14%). The willingness to participate is also quite meagre. Only 20% of the respondents were able to imagine using social media to communicate on political topics, while 18% could envisage membership in a political group there (Köcher & Bruttel, 2011).