Predicting and comparing traditional and online political participation:

An examination of personality traits, political attitudes and behavior

Lysanne Chang

5755204

Master’s Thesis

Graduate School of Communication

University of Amsterdam

Master’s programme Communication Science – Political Communication

Supervisor: Drs. T. P. Bakker

June 29th, 2012

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Abstract

Political participation has long been subject to research and since the rise of the Internet, the

latter has been included too. However, there is still no consensus about the effects of the

Internet on political participation and democracy in the ongoing debate. In light of this debate,

this study investigates how behavior, including behavior connected to news media use and

online activities, personality traits, and political attitudes, are related to traditional and online

political participation. Because of this relatively large amount of predictors, a clear overview

is given of how these independent variables are related to different forms of political

participation, consisting of online informative, online interactive, and traditional forms of

political participation. In addition to political participation in general, a politically-related

issue - the Kony 2012 video - was isolated in order to analyze if and when, general political

participation differed from Kony-related participation. A special focus concerned the Kony-

protest of April 20th 2012. At the actual protest authentic data of the protesters were collected,

which can be seen as an unique feature of this study. Findings demonstrate that behavior had a

larger impact on political and Kony-related participation than personality traits and political

attitudes. Political talk was a significant predictor for engaging in Kony-related online

activities and online political activities in general. Furthermore, activities conducted on the

Internet played a significant role in predicting traditional political participation as well as

Kony-related forms of traditional participation. With regard to political attitude, internal

efficacy played a significant role in traditional political participation as well as in online

informative political participation. Concerning the special focus on the Kony protest, results

show that extraversion has played a large role in predicting the inclination to protest.

Extraversion has furthermore played a significant role in predicting traditional forms of

political participation in general.

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Introduction

Internet made its appearance in the 1990s and from then on it has changed society and politics

in an irreversible way. The debate on the effects of the Internet on political participation and

democracy has since then been ongoing and different views have been part of the discussion.

Considered from an optimistic view, Internet can be seen as a forum for political debate, and

it can make it possible for politically inactive citizens in the offline world to become

politically active in the online world (Hindman, 2009). Citizens can also act as opinion

leaders, since the Internet enables them to share news stories of their interest with others

(Mutz & Young, 2011). With regard to the democratizing potential of the Internet, findings of

Dylko, Beam, Landreville and Geidner (2011) for example show that citizens were more

capable of disseminating political news videos on YouTube than the elite. The Internet can

also be used as a tool for (political) mobilization. Internet-optimists often use this argument in

the debate on the Internet and they propose the mobilizing hypothesis, which states that the

costs of acquiring information and communication will decrease because of new

communication technologies like the Internet. As a result of the decreased costs, there will be

more chances and opportunities for citizens to become involved in politics, and it will enable

new groups to take part. Since it has become easier to get involved into policy networks

which are otherwise hard to get involved in, democratic participation will increase (Stanley &

Weare, 2004).

Beside this optimistic view of new media on society, a pessimistic view and a skeptic

view also exists (Park & Perry, 2008). According to the pessimistic view, Internet will not

increase people’s interest in politics. On the contrary, it will only reinforce the existing power

relations and only the people who are already interested in politics are likely to use Internet

for engaging in politics (Norris, 2001). In addition, the pessimists are also afraid of a digital

divide that will widen between people who are information rich and information poor

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(Bonfadelli, 2002). Furthermore, the Internet provides such an overload of information that it

is possible for individuals to get overwhelmed by this volume of information and they will

therefore not be able to make effective use of it (Polat, 2005).

Just as the optimists have their mobilizing hypothesis to bring into the debate, the

pessimists use the reinforcement hypothesis to substantiate their view. The reinforcement

hypothesis adds to the already mentioned aspects above that powerful individuals and

organizations in the political process have the possibilities to control the new technologies.

Therefore, this powerful elite continues to be able to support their own interests because of

their ability of controlling the distribution of the Internet and their design (Stanley & Weare,

2004). This was also found by Dylko et al. (2011) who, beside the optimistic effect of the

creating and distributional potential of citizens regarding political news videos on YouTube,

also found that the power relations of news sourcing, news production and news distribution,

are still dominated by the elites.

Finally, the skeptic view regards Internet as a reflection of reality and states that both

of the indicated views above are exaggerated. Skeptics do not see any drastic changes;

Internet will not turn political inactive citizens into politically active citizens, nor will it

reinforce the existing power relations (Norris, 2001). “Slacktivism” is a term which fits in this

skeptic view. The term is derived from “slacker activism” and is used for online political

activities of online users, such as signing online petitions or liking a political video, giving

them the feeling of having done something to help a given cause, but which has however little

to no impact on the real world (Gaffney, 2010).

Since there is no consensus about how behavior on the Internet is related to political

participation, this study investigates, among other factors, behavioral factors that could

explain political participation on the Internet. This will contribute to the debate on the effects

of Internet on political participation. Furthermore, participation is the basis of democratic

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processes and it is therefore important to know the determinant factors that can explain

political participation, since engaging, whether or not online, contributes to a healthy

democracy. (Paxton 2002; de Vreese & Boomgaarden, 2006).

An analysis will be made of what determines people to participate in various forms of

political activities online, for example on social networking sites or on discussion forums.

However, since the Internet is seen as a medium that can cause changes in political

participation, it is important to have a reference of the physical world, in order to compare and

analyze the potentials of the Internet. Therefore this study will investigate, besides the various

forms of online political participation, also traditional forms of political participation.

Afterwards a comparison will be made between online political participation and

traditional political participation in order to see how, and if they are related. The following

will be reviewed: if and, when if so, how the factors explaining online participation differ

from traditional forms of political participation. There exists a large history of explaining

political participation, and since the rise of the Internet, this has been included too. Concepts

of 25 or 50 years ago such as political talk for example, remain highly relevant in political

communication research (Mutz & Young, 2011). Therefore, the explaining factors that will be

used for online and traditional political participation will be the same.

Moreover, this study not only taps into general political participation, but also taps

into a current politically-related issue at the time this study was carried out. A special focus

will be on the protest action of this current issue in order to analyze how it is linked with

online participation, since this issue originated online. In order to gain authentic data of these

protesters, the protest was attended and a survey was distributed among the participants. This

can be seen as an unique feature, since most of the studies investigating protest rely only on

self-report measures following a protest (Finkel, 1987). In this way real evidence of people

who indicated to have protested is missing. Besides, as already indicated in earlier times, self

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reporting is not always accurate (Tittle & Hill, 1967) and behavior can easily be exaggerated

(Muller, Seligson & Turan, 1987).

The power of SNS in political participation

Social networking sites (SNS) can be described as an Internet-based platform on which users

can be connected in order to communicate, share, and discuss with each other in a virtual

world (Raacke & Bonds-Raacke, 2008). In recent years the potential of Internet and especially

SNS became visible. A recent example is the use of SNS in the Arab Spring, starting in the

end of December 2010. In news messages about the Arab Spring, a large role of new media as

a political mobilizer was theorized. This was also the case in 2009 with the “Twitter

revolution” in Iran. As a result of the Iranian elections of 2009, protests occurred in the major

cities of Iran against the argued victory of the Iranian president Ahmadinejad, and in favor of

the opposition candidates, especially Mousavi. At that time, Twitter was relatively new, and

in the widespread media coverage the role of SNS was highlighted, both in helping organize

activities and in sharing the progress of events (Carafano, 2009).

Another example of the potential of SNS in political participation is the online

Guatemalan justice movement. The online Guatemalan justice movement created a Facebook

page which was originally created in order to provide information about the murder of

Rosenberg, as a result of a video which appeared on the Internet after his death in May 2009.

In this video the prominent lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg blamed the Guatemalan president

Alvaro Colom for murdering him. Because of this accusation, numerous Facebook pages were

created calling for justice for Rosenberg and the resignation of Colom. It was not the intention

of the makers of these Facebook pages to activate the Guatemalan public to protest, yet

motivational and protest-related comments contributed to the organization of massive protests

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concerning their demand for justice and stopping the violence. Thus, this example shows that

because of SNS, it became possible for an online movement to move offline (Harlow, 2011).

Another example is the Kony video which became famous all over the Internet. In the

first week since its launch on March 5th 2012, 78 million people watched this 30 minute-

documentary, and hashtags like #stopkony were trending topics on Twitter (Pfauth, 2012). It

was found that there were nearly 5 million tweets about the video in the week after it was

posted on YouTube (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2012). The video is part of an

online campaign of the American organization Invisible Children, calling for the arrest of

LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) leader Joseph Kony, since he is kidnapping children and

turning them into child soldiers. These child soldiers appear to be drugged in order to do

exactly what Kony says and he is said to have done terrible things to scare the people in order

to remain in power in this way. In the video, a worldwide protest was announced on April 20th

2012.

This study isolates the Kony case and attempts to investigate what causes people to

engage in various Kony-related activities in the online world, and in various traditional forms

of participation in the offline world. Since the Kony video was the first motivation whether or

not to take action in various forms of participation, an analysis will be made of how online

participation is related to traditional participation. A special focus will be on the Kony-related

protest action.

Since there exists a long tradition of explaining political participation in which

important concepts of 25 or 50 years ago are still as relevant as today (Mutz & Young, 2011),

this study takes on certain concepts, for example political talk, but also other behaviorally

related factors, such as news media use as well as personality related factors, and political

attitudes in order to analyze how these indicated factors are related to Kony-related

participation online and in traditional forms. However, since the Kony case is an unique case,

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due to its wide scope, and because every other special political issue is different too, this

study also takes into account political participation in general. The applied concepts will be

the same for both sorts of participation in order to make comparisons and indicate possible

differences and similarities. In addition, an analysis will be made of what was the possible

power of SNS and other online activities in their relation to traditional forms of participation,

and especially the Kony protest. In this way this study aims to generate an insight in the

explanatory factors of traditional and online political participation in general and those

concerning the Kony case. The research question this study aims to answer for both the Kony

case and general political participation is:

Research question (RQ): How do personality traits, political attitudes and behavior

relate to traditional and online political participation?

Defining different forms of political participation

Political participation is a wide concept. Political participation can, for example, refer to

attending political debates or demonstrations, the signing of petitions or signature lists, or

reading about political subjects. Between reading about political subjects and the attending of

demonstrations, there is a difference. Verba, Schlozman and Brady (1995) ascribe these

differences to the resources that are needed for engaging in political activities; time, money

and civic skills. The signing of a petition includes less time than attending the Kony protest

and is less expensive to invest in than donating money to a political organization. Civic skills

can be considered as speaking or writing well, or the ability to organize political meetings etc.

Someone who has acquired a high level of civic skills is, for example, more likely to give a

speech in a political meeting than someone who has a low level of civic skills. Taken

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together, the resources available are likely to influence the behavior of participating in

political activities and are widely used since (Verba et al., 1995).

The resource model of Verba et al. (1995) is related to traditional forms of political

participation, which they divided into the activities; voting, donating campaign money, taking

part in campaign work and demonstrating (Verba et al., 1995). Anduiza, Gallego and

Cantijoch (2010) have extended the resource model into a model that includes Internet skills

too, in order to investigate political participation online. Someone with better Internet skills is

likely to engage more in online activities than someone who has not acquired these skills. It is

for example easier to go to a political website by entering the name in the search bar, or to

click on the like-button on Facebook, than donating money to political organizations online.

Internet skilled people are also more likely to understand how the information society

functions and they can therefore better estimate in what way it is possible to exert their

influence. Furthermore, Anduiza et al. (2010) describe three forms of online political

participation; contacting officials; donating; and signing petitions.

Although Verba et al. (1995) and Anduiza et al. (2010) have made distinctions, the

methodology in political participation research that is dominant today, consists of combining

various politically-related activities into one single index (Dylko, 2010). However, Dylko

(2010) has found that this can be problematic. His findings show that the effect of discussing

politics and certain media use variables, is dependent on the specific form of political

participation one is focused on. It is therefore possible that this has contributed to some

contradictions in research findings, which Dylko outlines in his research.

Because of the multiple dimensions within political participation, it is highly relevant

to make distinctions within political participation. Regarding online participation, Norris and

Jones (1998) investigated what people do online and they differentiate between four basic

types of users who relate to the different dimensions on the Internet. Bakker and De Vreese

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(2011) have made a distinction within digital participation, consisting of active and passive

participation. Furthermore, De Zúñiga., Rojas and Puig-i Abril (2009) distinguish between

blog use, campaign-related activities online and information-seeking from traditional media

online.

The multiple different dimensions the Internet and traditional political participation

can provide, will be taken into account in order to make a possible distinction within Kony-

related participation and within political participation in general. The hypotheses that will be

stated in this study, will cover both Kony-related participation as well as general political

participation and concern traditional and online forms of participation. However, this

proposed distinction will be examined further, since these general forms of political

participation can be seen as “highly multidimensional, encompassing numerous behaviors that

arise from numerous motives, that are fostered or hindered by numerous moderating

variables” (Dylko, 2010 p.524-525).

Apart from the division of specific political activities online and traditional forms of

political activities, Shah, McLeod and Lee (2012) found evidence of online pathways leading

to traditional forms of political participation. They stated that Internet plays a key role in these

forms of participation (Shah et al., 2012). Since one of the main purposes of the online Kony

video was that action was taken in the offline world, and because of the general findings of

Shah et al., the following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 1 (H1): Online political participation is positively related to traditional forms of

political participation.

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Personality

It has often been suggested that personality explains the behavior of individuals and groups

(Mondak & Halperin, 2008). Research on personality refers to personality as a “multifaceted,

enduring, internal psychological structure” (Mondak, Hibbing, Canache, Seligson &

Anderson, 2010, p. 2). Personality traits determine what people are like and the occurrence of

these traits varies in intensity and frequency (Caprara, Schwartz, Capanna, Vecchione &

Barbaranelli, 2006). The Big Five personality traits model distinguishes five prominent

personality traits; extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, neuroticism and

conscientiousness. Together they determine what kinds of ideas and experiences are found

appealing or unappealing by someone in political as well as in non-political settings (Gerber,

Huber, Doherty & Dowling, 2011). Since more than two decades these five prominent traits

have been central in attention in trait research (Mondak et al., 2010). Since that time it has

also become a fixture in the study of personality on political participation, whereas it first had

been neglected for many years, because of a lack of concise taxonomies which could be

applied to the study of politics (Mondak & Halperin, 2008). In recent studies the link between

personality and political participation has been investigated (e.g., Caprara et al., 2006;

Gallengo & Oberski, 2011; Gerber et al., 2011; Mondak & Halperin, 2008).

This research will focus on two traits of the Big Five personality traits model:

extraversion and openness to experience. These two traits have been proven to be connected

to political participation. Research found that people who scored high on openness to

experience were more likely to seek information and engage in basically all kinds of activities

than people who scored low (Mondak et al., 2010). People who are open to experience are

also more likely to be curious and having a willingness to entertain new ideas (Gerber, Huber,

Doherty, Dowling, Raso & Shang, 2011). Furthermore, strongly consistent findings in a study

by Mondak and Halperin (2008) show that openness to experience is related to discussing

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political issues (Mondak & Halperin, 2008). Besides this general approach on general

political participation, it has been suggested that people who are open to experience have

especially an interest in current events (Gallego & Oberski, 2011). Since the Kony issue was

also a ‘hot topic’ looking at the amount of attention it got of millions from people around the

world, and because it was current at the time this research has been done, the relationship

between openness to experience in the Kony case is therefore interesting to look at too. The

next hypothesis is:

Hypothesis 2 (H2): Openness to experience is positively related to various political activities

online that include information seeking or political discussion and to traditional forms of

participation.

Extraversion has been associated with increased political participation in previous research

(Gerber et al., 2011). Extraverted people tend to be social and to have a positive emotionality.

These motivations are associated with social activity, for example group-oriented political

activities like protesting (Mondak et al., 2010).

Because extraversion is specially relevant for participation that includes interpersonal

interactions, a strong predictor (Gerber et al., 2011), it will be assumed that extraverted people

are more likely to engage in online activities that include interpersonal interactions, for

example in giving their opinion or commenting on a topic on social networking sites like

Facebook or Twitter, and in traditional forms of participation such as protesting which is a

group oriented political activity. Therefore the following hypothesis is:

Hypothesis 3 (H3): extraversion is positively related with online political activities that

include interpersonal interactions and traditional forms of political participation.

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Political efficacy

Political efficacy refers to “the belief that one has the skills to influence the political system”

(Zimmerman, 1989, p. 554). It is an indicator of political attitude and has been studied since

the 1950s (Niemi, Craig & Mattei, 1988). Someone who scores high on internal political

efficacy has the belief that he is capable enough to take part in political acts such as protesting

or voting (Zimmerman, 1989).

Seen in the context of political participation, studies investigating political efficacy

have mostly focused on the relationship of political efficacy and voting or campaign activity

(e.g., Clarke & Acock, 1989; Dermody, Hammer-Loyd & Scullion, 2010; Finkel, 1985; 1987;

Valentino, Gregorowicz, & Groenendyk, 2009), or Internet use or media use (e.g., Kenski &

Stroud, 2006; Lee, 2006; Pinkleton, Austin & Fortman 1998). Thus, however some scholars

have focused on online political participation like political Internet use and more have focused

on traditional political activity, a combination of both forms of online participation as well as

traditional forms of participation as described above, have not been investigated yet. This

combination of online and offline political activity is yet worth studying, since a wide range

of attitudes and behavior can be shaped internal political efficacy (Bowler & Donnovan,

2002). While some studies have investigated the effect of different forms of political activity

on political efficacy (Finkel 1987, Kenski & Stroud, 2006), it is however also likely vice

versa; when someone has a high feeling of internal political efficacy, it is easy to hypothesize

that this will more easily lead this person engaging in political activities than someone who

has a very low feeling of internal efficacy. The following hypotheses is:

Hypothesis 4 (H4): Internal efficacy is positively related to various forms of online political

participation as well as traditional forms of political participation.

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Political Talk

Interpersonal communication about politics plays an important role in political participation

(Scheufele, Nisbet & Brossard, 2003). The last 25 years show a peak in the research on

interpersonal political communication (Mutz & Young, 2011). However, interpersonal

communication is a broad concept. Scheufele (2000) operationalized the concepts of political

talk and conversation as distinct forms of interpersonal communication about politics. The

main difference between these two concepts is that political talk is, as defined in its name,

goal-oriented around politics, whereas casual conversations are mostly not. Political talk has

also an informative function, in contrast to conversation. People who practice political talk

exchange information which could be relevant for them in order to understand politics and to

participate in political processes (Scheufele 2000). People also get to know of opportunities

and ways to participate in politically related issues because of political talk (McLeod,

Scheufele & Moy, 1999). Most people rely on friends or family members with similar views,

positions and experience as themselves, in their daily communication (Sotirovic & McLeod,

2012). Mutz and Mondak (2006) found that the workplace is also a very important context for

political talk. The following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 5 (H5): Political talk is positively related to political participation.

News media use

Beside political talk, the media can play a role in mobilizing people to participate in

politically related issues too (McLeod, Scheufele & Moy, 1999) and just as the debate of

Internet on political participation has its different views, the debate concerning media use on

political participation is also still going on and has not come to an end. This debate is oriented

on the ‘virtuous’ or ‘vicious’ effects of the media (De Vreese & Boomgaarden, 2006).

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Findings in research investigating the effects of media use on various aspects of

political participation differ. On the one side, research has found that a high level of media

use decreases political participation and that media use contributes to political cynicism and a

lower turnout in voting for elections. From an opposite side, results show a positive relation

between media use and political involvement, political trust, mobilization and political

efficacy (Aarts & Semetko, 2003). Concerning Internet news use, Boulianne (2009) has found

in her meta-analysis on Internet use and engagement, that Internet news use is positively

related to political engagement and that this effect appears to increase over time. Furthermore,

in her research investigating news media use and political interest, Boulianne (2011) has

taken on the assumption that in order to get engaged in politics, political interest is a

prerequisite. It has been suggested, in line with the different findings in media use on political

participation, that different types of news media are also differently related to political

interest. She found that television news use is likely to be used by people already interested in

politics, and that Internet news use and print news use can however stimulate an interest in

politics (Boulianne, 2011).

Furthermore, De Vreese and Boomgaarden (2006) have found that news media

exposure with a high level of political content increases voter turnout and leads to gaining

more knowledge. For the Netherlands, they specifically found a positive relation between

exposure to all types of news outlets and turnout intention (De Vreese & Boomgaarden,

2006). However, turnout intention is just one aspect of political participation and this study

investigates in addition other forms of participation. Since findings in this area of study have

resulted in differences, a good prediction is hard to make. Therefore, despite the complexities

in this field, this study chooses to take on the results of De Vreese and Boomgaarden

concerning the indicated findings for the Netherlands and expands this to other various forms

of political participation, which leads to the next proposed hypothesis:

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Hypothesis 6 (H6): various types of news media use are positively related to political

participation.

Method

A survey was distributed in order to investigate how different personality and behavior related

factors are linked to various forms of traditional and online political activities. Through

personal recruitment via e-mail or personal messages on Facebook, an online survey was sent

to 139 people, 64 of them were people who had ‘liked’ a Kony-related community page on

Facebook. Through public recruitment the online survey was posted on 6 different Facebook

pages, including Kony-related Facebook pages. Furthermore, a paper version of the survey

was handed out to 56 protesters on the announced protest day of April 20th, of which 53 had

completed the survey. Last, an unknown amount of people had forwarded the message with a

call to fill in the survey.

Starting on April 18th 2012, the period the survey was distributed, took circa one

month. A total of 171 respondents completed the survey (M = 29.46, SD =13,46) of which

88,30% (N=151) of them have said they had seen the video, or heard, read, saw something

about the video or the news around it. When taking together the 203 personal messages sent

via Facebook or e-mail as well as the 56 surveys distributed among the protesters, this has

resulted in a response rate of 66%. However, since there are no precise statistics of who

exactly completed the survey, including the unknown amount of forwarded messages and the

fact that there is no clear overview of which people from which specific focused group have

filled in the survey, the response rate will be however lower than it has been calculated now.

Appendix 1 includes the full question wording of the survey.

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Selection of respondents

Since this study is interested in various forms of general political participation and Kony-

related participation, two different approaches were used in order to select the research units

for these two cases. Concerning the Kony-case, a random sample of people on different Dutch

Kony-related community pages on Facebook were selected. This consisted of the general

community page of the Netherlands, and several local community pages of cities in the

Netherlands; Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Groningen, and Leiden. People

who had ‘liked’ one of these pages, had made their appearance already visible in relation to

some of the specific online activities investigated in this study. Besides, when possible, a

public message was posted on a Kony community page, calling for people to complete the

survey. In order to select people who engaged in a traditional form of Kony participation, the

protest on April 20th 2012 was attended and a paper version of the survey was handed out to

protesters.

In order to select respondents concerning the focus on general political participation,

the survey was distributed online via e-mail or personal messages on Facebook to fellow

students, colleagues, relatives, family and friends. In many messages a call was added to

forward the message to other people so that they could fill in the survey too.

Dependent variables

As indicated earlier by the models of Verba et al. (1995) and Anduiza et al. (2010), and the

examples of different distinctions within traditional and online political participation, it is

relevant to differentiate within political participation. Therefore, a factor analysis with

Varimax rotation was carried out on general political participation in order to measure the

best possible division. This resulted in three distinct components which can be labeled as;

online informative political participation; online interactive political participation; and

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traditional forms of political participation. These three forms respectively explained 38.40%

(eigenvalue 4.6), 12,88% (eigenvalue 1.55), and 10.27% (eigenvalue 1.23) of the variance.

Based on the division distinguished from the factor analysis on general political participation,

the same division was used in order to classify Kony participation.

In contrast with the frequency-related measurements of general political participation,

using a 5 points scale, ranging from never until very often, Kony-related participation was

measured with a cumulative index ranging from engaged in non of the activities to engaged in

all activities. As indicated earlier by the findings of Dylko (2010), a cumulative index does

not say anything about the frequency in which someone has participated in a given activity

since it only taps the “breadth” of participation (Dylko, 2010, p. 524). However, since the

Kony-related activities are not as common as general political participation and since it

concerns a specific issue in which it was also not possible for some activities to be engaged in

frequently, for example liking the Kony video can only be done once on Facebook, this

breadth is exactly what this study wants to grasp regarding Kony-related participation. See

Table 1 for all the measurements of the variables.

Online informative political participation. General online informative political

participation was measured by proposing the respondent statements concerning reading about

political issues on the Internet, visiting websites of political parties or social organizations,

watching political videos on the Internet, and searching actively for background information

concerning political issues on the Internet, excluding news websites. Regarding Kony-related

online informative participation, respondents were proposed statements investigating whether

they visited the website of the Kony 2012 campaign, and if they had searched for more

information on the Internet concerning the topics in the video (Ugunda, Kony, child soldiers

etc.).

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Table 1. Measurements

M (SD) Range α

Online informative political participation

2.60 (.90) 1-5, never - very often .86

Kony-related online informative participation

.88 (.86)

0-2, none activities - all activities

Online interactive political participation

1.64 (.75) 1-5, never - very often .57

Kony-related online interactive participation

1.17 (1.59) 0-4, none activities

- all activities

Traditional forms of political participation

1.76 (.62) 1-5, never - very often .75

Traditional forms of Kony-related participation

.51 (.84) 0-3, none activities

- all activities

Extraversion

5.56 (1.04) 1-7, strongly agree .85

- strongly disagree

Openness to experience 5.38 (.98) 1-7, strongly agree

.73 - strongly disagree

Internal efficacy 4.06 (1.50) 1-7, strongly agree .86

- strongly disagree News media use: Internet

4.22 (.93) 1-5, never – very often

News media use: Television 3.67 (1.09) 1-5, never – very often News media use: Radio 3.01 (1.39) 1-5, never – very often News media use: Newspapers 3.29 (1.17) 1-5, never – very often Political talk

3.37 (.88) 1-5, never – very often

Kony talk .68 (.47) 0-1, no - yes

Online interactive political participation. Online interactive political participation was

measured by asking the respondents how often they posted comments about politically tinted

issues on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter or Hyves, and how often they posted

comments on news sites or discussion forums concerning political topics. Kony-related

interactive participation was measured by asking the respondents if they had commented on

the Kony video on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter or Hyves, if they had posted

one or more comments concerning the Kony video on news sites or discussion forums, if they

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had shared the Kony video with other peoples (for example via e-mail, or if they had placed

the video on Facebook, Twitter or Hyves), if they had ‘liked’ the video on Facebook or

respected the video on Hyves.

Traditional forms of political participation. General traditional forms of political

participation were measured by asking the respondents how often they; handed out campaign

material of political parties or social organizations; attended demonstration; donated money to

political parties or social organizations; signed petitions and/or signature lists on the Internet;

called on people through the Internet to engage actively in politics (for example in order to

vote, to read something or to take action etc.); took part in political lectures, debates or

manifestations. The reason that the last two statements contain Internet related activities is

because these two forms generally have been taken up by the Internet. For example, it hardly

occurs nowadays that someone is going from door to door in order to collect signatures, this is

now mostly done on the Internet. That is the reason why these forms can be seen as offline

political participation. In addition, Anduiza et al. (2010) also investigated these two activities

in regard to their online form (Anduiza et al., 2010). However, since there remains a

connection to the online world, these forms are therefore called traditional forms of political

participation since this is the best name for the representation of these items. Kony-related

traditional forms of participation are measured with the statements: I have donated money or I

have the intention to donate money to the organization that made the Kony video; I ordered

the Kony 2012 action kit or I have the intention to order it; I have the intention, or I attended

the Kony protest on April 20th.

Kony protest. Kony-related protest was measured by proposing the respondents the

following statement before the protest took place: I have the intention to attend the Kony

protest. After the protest, the statement was changed into: I attended the Kony protest on April

20th. A total of 32.2% (N = 55) of all the respondents has indicated to have the intention to

21  

protest or to have attended the protest, of which almost all of them 96.4% (N = 53) have filled

in the distributed survey at the actual protest.

Independent variables

Internal political efficacy. Internal political efficacy was based on the scale of Niemi et al.

(1991). Respondents were asked if they saw themselves as someone who; is competent

enough to participate in politics; has a good insight in the most important problems of The

Netherlands’; is better informed than others concerning politics and the government.

News media use. News media use was measured by asking the respondents about the

frequency of media use for news and current affairs regarding television, Internet, radio, and

newspapers.

Extraversion and openness to experience. The measurement of extraversion was

based on the personality big 5 model of John & Srivastava, (1999). The original measurement

of this model consists of 8 till 10 per personality traits. However, in research where this model

is applied, very short questionnaires are used, consisting of 1 or 2 items. Findings of Credé et

al. have shown that very short questionnaires consisting of 1 or 2 items do not say that much.

From their results it became clear that when the scale is a bit longer, this will lead to a higher

validity and this will result in more reliable scores (Credé et al., 2012). Out of the big 5 model

the following items were chosen to measure extraversion: I see myself as someone who; is

talkative; is outgoing; generates a lot of enthusiasm around me. Openness to experience was

measured with the statements: I see myself as someone who; is original, comes up with new

ideas; is curious about many different things; has an active imagination.

Political talk. Political talk was measured by proposing the statement: I talk about

politics with family, friends or colleagues. Regarding Kony talk, people who have said to

have seen the video, or heard, read, saw something about the video o the news around it, were

asked if they had talked about the Kony video with family, friends or colleagues.

22  

Online political participation. General political participation on the Internet was

measured by calculating all conducting activities on the Internet; online informative and

online interactive political participation. The same procedure was followed in order to

measure Kony-related online participation.

Control variables. Age was measured by asking the respondents to fill in their age.

Gender was measured by asking the respondents if they are a male (36.3%) or a female

(63.7%), out of this variable, the dummy variable ‘women’ was made. Education was

measured by asking the respondents what their highest completed education was. Out of these

answers three categories were made; low (9.4%), middle (29.8%) and high education (60.8%).

Additionally two dummy variables were made, consisting of; middle and high education.

Analysis

Multiple regression analyses were carried out in order to test the hypotheses1. Regarding

general political participation, three multiple regression analyses were run on the three

dependent forms of general political participation; online informative political participation;

online interactive political participation; and traditional forms of political participation. Every

regression analysis consisted of three blocks. The first block contained the control variables;

age, gender, occupation. In the second block, variables related to personality and attitudes

were added, existing of the variables; openness to experience; extraversion; internal and

external political efficacy. The last block contained variables concerning one’s behavior;

political talk and news media use. Using this approach, the effects of each added block of

predictors on the independent variable can be analyzed. In this way it becomes clear if and

how the effects of for example the personality-related block will change when another block

of behavioral-related predictors is added.

With regard to the Kony case, again three multiple regression analyses were done on

the Kony-related dependent variables, and the same classification of the three blocks as

23  

indicated in the general regression analysis was used. Concerning the special focus on the

Kony protest, a logistic regression was carried out. The logistic regression analysis consisted

of four blocks. The first block included the control variables, the second block personality

traits and political attitudes, the third block media variables and the last block all Kony-related

conducted activities online. Furthermore, in order to discover differences between protesters

and non-protesters, independent-samples t-tests were conducted. The independent variables

that were used in the independent-samples t-tests, were identical to the independent variables

used in the logistic regression analysis, with an addition of political talk

Results  

For every regression analysis the following will be investigated: which variables play a role in

determining the various forms of participation. First political participation in general will be

investigated, thereafter the Kony analyses will be examined.

When looking at general online informative political participation (Table 2), internal

efficacy is of all personality variables the only significant predictor. Here, H4 which stated

that internal efficacy is positively related to this type of online political participation, is

confirmed. Out of the behavioral factors, political talk and almost all media that are used for

news and current affairs are related to this type of general online participation. Television and

radio had however a negative effect, whereas Internet had a positive effect on online

informative political participation and newspapers had a marginal effect in the third block,

before talk was added. These findings result in a confirmation of H5 where political talk was

proposed as a positive predictor, and a partially confirmed H6, in which news media use was

stated to relate positively to various forms of online participation, this was only fully

confirmed for Internet news use.

24  

Table 2. Predicting online informative political participation

M1 M2 M3 M4

Control variables Age -.15* -.19 -.09 -.07 Women -.15** -.08 .01 -.03 High education .37** .24** .12 .09 Middle education .09 .06 -.03 -.02 Personality traits and attitudes Internal efficacy .48*** .44*** .30*** Openness to experience .03 -.06 -.04 Extraversion -.08 -.04 -.05 Media use Television -.16** -.14** Internet .39*** .37*** Newspaper .13 .06 Radio -.15** -.12** Behavioral Politcal talk .31*** N 171 R² change .130 .019 .046 .207

Adjusted R² .109 .113 .14 .357

Note: Entries are standardized beta coefficients *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.

For online interactive political participation (Table 3), age is a negative significant predictor

for this type of participation, which means that the younger the respondents were, the higher

the chance that they engaged in online political interactive activities. Internal efficacy

appeared to be a significant predictor until the third block, however, when the political talk

behavior variable was added, this effect disappeared Out of the behavioral variables, political

talk is positively related to online interactive participation, leading to a confirmation of H5.

When looking at the media use for news and current affairs, Internet is a significant predictor

in determining this type of participation. Furthermore, television appears to be negatively

significantly related.

25  

Table 3. Predicting online interactive political participation

M1 M2 M3 M4

Control variables Age -.23** -.25*** -.19* -.17* Women -.11 -.07 .01 -.03 High education .05 -.02 -.08 -.11 Middle education -.12 -.14 -.19 -.18 Personality traits and attitudes Internal efficacy .26** .28** .15 Openness to experience -.02 -.09 -.06 Extraversion -.04 -.03 -.04 Media use Television -.19* -.17* Internet .19* .17* Newspaper .01 -.05 Radio .00 .03 Behavioral

Politcal talk

.29*** N 171 R² change .118 .214 .148 .063

Adjusted R² .097 .304 .444 .509

Note: Entries are standardized beta coefficients *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.

When looking at both the online forms of political participation (Tables 2 and 3),

political talk is a strong predictor for engaging in both of these online forms of political

participation, as well as Internet use for news and current affairs. Television appeared in both

analyses to have a negative significant effect on participation in online political activities.

Concerning traditional forms of participation (Table 4), extraversion is a significant

predictor, leading to the confirming H3 in the part where it was stated that extraversion is

positively related to traditional forms of political participation. Openness to experience is a

significant negative predictor, until the added online conducted activities, it then becomes

marginal. This finding is in contrast with the stated H2 in which openness to experience was

said to relate positively to traditional forms of political participation. Internal efficacy

26  

appeared to be a significant predictor. Therefore H4 which stated that internal efficacy is

related to various forms of online political participation as well as traditional forms of

political participation is partial confirmed since it is only significant in informative

participation, and in traditional participation.

Table 4. Predicting traditional forms of political participation

M1 M2 M3 M4 M 5

Control variables Age -.03 -.08 -.08 -.06 -.01 Women .01 .02 .11 .08 .09 High education .13 .04 -.01 -.03 -.03 Middle education -.10 -.11 -.14 -.13 -.09 Personality traits and attitudes Internal efficacy .41*** .39*** .29*** .18* Openness to experience -.16 -.20* -.18* -.16 Extraversion .18* .16 .15 .17* Media use Television -.26*** -.25*** -.18* Internet .10 .09 -.05 Newspaper .20* .15 .14 Radio .00 .02 .04 Behavioral Politcal talk .21** .07 Online political participation .40*** N 171 R² change .045 .133 .071 .034 .087

Adjusted R² .022 .148 .207 .238 .326

Note: Entries are standardized beta coefficients *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.

Television had a negative significant effect and newspapers a positive marginal effect

on traditional political participation. Taking together the former results of the regression

analyses concerning media use for news and current affairs, it is clear that H6, which stated

that news media use is positively related to various forms of online and traditional political

participation, showed too many inconsistencies to be confirmed. However, overall what can

be said about the use of media for news and current affairs is that Internet is a significant

27  

predictor for participation in both forms of online political participation, whereas television

was in all forms a negative significant predictor.

Furthermore, in the fourth block, political talk was added and it proved to be

significantly related. However, when the variable consisting of all online conducted activities

is added, the effect of political talk disappears. All online conducted activities show to be

significantly related to traditional forms of political participation. This finding is in line with

H1 that stated that: various forms of online political participation are positively related to

traditional forms of political participation.

Table 5. Predicting Kony-related online informative participation

M1 M2 M3 M4

Control variables Age -.37*** -.36*** -.31 -.08 Women .01 .02 .07 .03 High education -.18 -.17 -.22 -.17 Middle education -.10 -.12 -.19 -.14 Personality traits and attitudes Internal efficacy .01 -.02 -.09 Openness to experience .15 .10 .07 Extraversion -.01 .01 .08 Media use Television -.10 -.07 Internet .20* .17* Newspaper .11 .01 Radio -.10 -.13* Behavioral Kony talk .51*** N 171 R² change .13 .007 .043 .203

Adjusted R² .109 .106 .134 .345

Note: Entries are standardized beta coefficients *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.

In Kony-related online informative participation (Table 5), behavioral factors play a

significant role in determining whether or not someone engages in informative Kony-related

28  

participation. These are the use of Internet and radio for news and current affairs and political

talk. Internet news use and political talk appeared to be positive predictors for online

informative participation, radio had a negative significant effect. This results in an

confirmation of H5 and a partial confirmation of H6 concerning Internet news use only.

In Kony-related interactive participation (Table 6), age played a negative role. Age

was significant in all blocks, except for the last block where it becomes marginal.

Extraversion appeared to be a positive significant predictor for participating in interactive

activities on the Internet. H3, which stated that extraversion is positively related with online

political activities that include interpersonal interactions and traditional forms of political

participation, is confirmed for the first part.

Table 6. Predicting Kony-related online interactive participation

M1 M2 M3 M4

Control variables Age -.38*** -.38*** -.33*** -.12 Women .07 .04 .06 .02 High education -.13 -.12 -.16 -.11 Middle education -.14 -.12 -.17 -.12 Personality traits and attitudes Internal efficacy -.05 -.05 -.11 Openness to experience -.05 -.09 -.11 Extraversion .13 .16 .23** Media use Television -.03 -.01 Internet .12 .10 Newspaper .00 -.09 Radio -.08 -.10 Behavioral Kony talk .48*** N 171 R² change .158 .015 .016 .181

Adjusted R² .138 .138 .134 .323

Note: Entries are standardized beta coefficients *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.

29  

Out of the behavioral variables, political talk was a significant predictor, just as in the Kony-

related online forms of participation. H5 was therefore fully confirmed. When comparing the

two online forms of Kony-related participation together (Tables 5 and 6), political talk is a

significant predictor for engaging in all kinds of Kony-related activities.

It was found for Kony-related traditional forms of participation (Table 7), that gender

was a significant predictor for traditional forms of Kony-related participation. Women

participated significantly more in traditional forms of Kony-related participation than men.

Looking at the personality factors, extraversion appeared to be significant in the fourth block,

as well as the added political talk variable in this block. However, when the conducted

activities online are added in the last block, these effects disappear and the online pathways

Table 7. Predicting Kony-related traditional forms of participation

M1 M2 M3 M4 M5

Control variables Age -.33*** -.33*** -.31*** -.14 -.05 Women -.17* -.20** -.17* -.20** -.22*** High education -.18 -.17 -.19 -.15 -.04 Middle education -.23 -.23 -.25 -.21 -.11 Personality traits and attitudes Internal efficacy -.04 -.06 -.11 -.03 Openness to experience -.03 -.04 -.06 -.03 Extraversion .15 .14 .20** .05 Media use Television -.07 -.05 -.03 Internet .07 -.01 .04 Newspaper .09 .07 -.04 Radio .00 -.03 .07 Behavioral Kony talk .41*** .00 Online Kony-related participation .76*** N 171 R² change .137 .018 .012 .128 .319

Adjusted R² .116 .124 .124 .251 .587 Note: Entries are standardized beta coefficients *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.

30  

leading to traditional forms show to be significant. The analysis shows that this was the main

reason for participation in traditional forms, therefore H1 can be confirmed.

When comparing the regression analyses of Kony participation (Tables 5, 6, and 7)

and general political participation together (Tables 2, 3, and 4), H1 can be confirmed for both

cases. This means that online pathways lead to traditional forms of participation.

Regarding the special focus on Kony protest (Table 8), It was found that age had a negative

significant effect on Kony protest. Furthermore, gender and high education vary between

negative significant to marginal effects. Regarding the added personality-related variables and

news media use variables, extraversion is a positive significant predictor for Kony protest,

however extraversion becomes marginal when all online Kony-related activities are added.

Table 8. Predicting Kony Protest

M1 M2 M3 M4

Control variables Age -.13*** -.14*** -.14*** -.13* Women -.52 -.80 -.82 -.2.71* High education -1.43* -1.44 -1.53* -2.21 Middle education -1.17 -1.12 -1.23 -.81 Personality traits and attitudes

Internal efficacy -.13 -.09 -.10 Openness to experience -.06 -.13 -.04 Extraversion .52* .62* .70 Media use Television .02 .29 Internet .11 -.33 Newspaper -.23 -.47 Radio -.14 -.07

Online Kony-related participation

1.25*** N 55

Note: Entries are beta coefficients *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.

31  

These added online Kony-related activities have a significant positive effect on Kony

protest. Furthermore in the last block newspaper use is a negative significant predictor.

Out of the conducted independent-samples t-tests in which the same predictors were

used as in the logistic regression analysis, with addition of political talk, significant

differences between protesters and non-protesters were discovered. Out of the 13 separate

predictors, 7 predictors were significantly different for protesters and non-protesters.

Significant differences were found in the control variables. These included age and education.

Protesters were younger (M = 22.04, SD = 5.75) than non-protesters (M = 32.97, SD = 14.62),

t (169) = 7.00, p = .000. The dummy variables middle education and high education were

made in order to measure education, which consisted of low, middle and high education.

Middle and high education were coded as 1, and 0 was coded for the other types of education.

Results show that protesters had a higher score on middle education (M = .42, SD = .50) than

non-protesters (M = .24, SD = .43), t (169) = -2.64, p = .026. Non-protesters on the other

hand, had a higher score on high education (M = .69, SD = .46) than protesters (M = .44, SD =

.50), t (169) = 3.16, p = .002.

Out of the personality-related predictors, a significant difference was found in internal

political efficacy. Non protesters had a higher feeling of internal efficacy (M = 4.22, SD =

1.54) than protesters (M = 3.73, SD = 1.36), t (169) = 2.01, p = .046. Furthermore, of the

behavioral-related predictors, newspaper use, all Kony-related conducted activities online and

political talk, were significant different between protesters and non-protesters. Protesters had

conducted more Kony-related activities online (M = 4.47, SD = 1.64) than non-protesters (M

= .91, SD = 1.42) t (169) = -14.58, p = .000. Non-protesters had a higher level of using

newspapers for news and current affairs (M = 3.45, SD = 1.24) than protesters (M = 2.95, SD

= .93), t (169) = 2.95, p = .004. Non-protesters also talked more about politics in general (M =

3.53, SD = .86) than protesters (M = 3.05, SD = .85), t (169) = 3.36, p = .001.

32  

Conclusion

The goal of this study was to analyze how personality traits and attitudes, as well as behavior

factors relate to various forms of political participation. Several personality as well as

behavior related factors were proposed to have a positive effect on political participation and

Kony-related participation. Because of this relatively large amount of predictors, a clear

overview is given of how these independent variables are related to different forms of

political participation, in contrast to other studies that have only included one predictor for

measuring political participation (e.g., Finkel, 1985; Mutz & Mondak, 2006). Some of the

factors in this study indeed related to an increased level of the various forms of Kony-related

and general political participation. Differences and similarities were found between general

political participation and Kony participation.

A first notable similarity in the two investigated cases, concerns political talk. Political

talk is a strong predictor in both online activities; in informative activities and in interactive

activities. In both Kony-related traditional participation as well as in general traditional forms

of political participation, political talk was a significant predictor, until the conducted

activities online were added. All political activities together conducted on the Internet, are a

strong significant predictor for engaging in traditional forms of participation. Thus, this online

pathway leads to a traditional pathway of traditional participation. Another online pathway in

both general and Kony related participation, consists of using the Internet for news and

current affairs. This pathway stays in the online world and leads in both cases to online

informative participation.

The similarities in the two cases concerning the Internet show the possibilities of the

Internet and what it is capable of. The role of online forms towards traditional forms of

participation are in line with the findings of Shah et al. (2012). This finding also reflects the

optimistic view in the debate on the effects of the Internet on political participation.

33  

Furthermore, it shows the power of SNS in engaging in political activities online which, as a

result, leads to traditional forms of political participation. The power of SNS has been proven

effective in cases like ‘the online Guatemalan justice movement’ and the Arab Spring.

However, this study has found that, beside the Kony case, this is also true for political

participation in general, and not just for current affairs or ‘hypes’.

The debate on the effects of news media use on political participation, which is

centered around virtuous or vicious effects, and which this study specified to news use, needs

to be looked at more closely. Concerning online political participation in general, a higher

level of Internet news use increases political participation in all online areas. This can be seen

as a virtuous effect in regard to the optimists in the debate. A vicious effect was found for

television concerning general political participation. Respondents who indicated to make less

use of television for news and current affairs, were more likely to engage in all forms of

online as well as in traditional forms of political participation. Put in another way, the more

people watch news and current affairs on television, the less it is likely that they engage in

political activities. This process of reduced available time for engagement in politics, is also

called time displacement (Putnam, 2000).

The findings of the overall low level of television news use as well as the high level of

Internet news use in online forms of political participation in general, leads to more nuances

in the virtuous and vicious debate, since not all media had either a positive or a negative effect

on political participation. However, as indicated above, conducted activities on the Internet

could play a role in traditional forms as a mediator, although this leads again to the already

discussed debate between the optimists, skeptics and pessimists.

Looking at the personality traits, extraversion has been found positively related to

traditional forms of political participation in general. In Kony-related participation it has been

found significant in interactive participation and in traditional participation until the all

34  

conducted online activities were added. These findings are in line with the research of Gerber

et al. (2011) who found that extraverted people are more likely to get involved in group

oriented political activities like protesting, which is an activity of traditional participation.

Besides, online interactive participation can also be seen as a group-oriented activity, since it

consists of sharing the Kony video with other peoples, or posting comments on SNS or news

sites or discussion forums.

Another personal-related variable, internal efficacy, showed to be related to different

forms of political participation. Overall, it had played a larger role in general political

participation, than in Kony-related activities. Concerning general political participation,

internal efficacy was significant in online informative political participation as well as in

traditional forms of political participation. In interactive political participation it was

significant until the variable political talk was added. These results confirm the findings of

Zimmerman (1989) and Kenski and Stroud (2006). Zimmerman (1989) has found that a high

feeling of internal political efficacy leads to the belief that he is capable enough to take part in

political acts such as protesting or voting, which in this study is true for traditional

participation in general. Furthermore, people with a high feeling of internal efficacy were

more likely to engage in informative activities online, such as reading about political issues,

watching political videos on the Internet, or searching for information on politics, than people

who scored lower on internal efficacy. However, in the research of Kenski and Stroud (2006),

it was found that this can also be seen from an opposite way. As a logical result of the easily

accessible information the Internet provides, internal efficacy increases, since this gives them

a feeling of being competent enough to participate in these political acts online (Kenski &

Stroud, 2006).

In Kony-related activities, internal efficacy did not play a significant role.

Furthermore, the Kony video became controversial after its launch. Therefore, it is possible

35  

that this had a large influence on how people have acted towards this case. People who

noticed the criticisms could have had the feeling that they could not influence the situation,

which contributed to a low level of internal efficacy. It is therefore possible that they did not

want to engage in online informative Kony related activities, such as visiting the website of

the Kony 2012 campaign, or in Kony-related traditional forms, like protesting, donating

money, or buying the action-kit.

When looking at the Kony-protest, the independent-samples t-tests showed differences

between the protesters and non-protesters. Protesters were younger, educated at middle level,

and had conducted more online Kony-related activities online than non-protesters. The

connection between age and education can be seen as a logical relation, as older people were

also higher educated in the non-protesters group. Furthermore, protesters made less use of

newspapers for news and actualities, had a lower level of internal efficacy, and talked less

about politics than non-protesters.

Regarding the effects of all predictors in the logistic regression analysis, age and high

education played the same negative roles as resulted from the independent-samples t-tests.

Age was significant in all blocks, high education however varied between significant and

marginal. Furthermore, as the same as in the independent-samples t-tests, all conducted Kony-

related activities on the Internet showed to have a positive significant effect on Kony protest.

The findings of age and Kony-related activities online of both the logistic regression as the

independent-samples t-tests, are in line with findings of the Pew research who found evidence

that young adults (18-29) heard about the Kony video in a different way than older people.

For young people social media played a larger role in hearing and learning about the Kony

video than traditional news sources (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2012). Besides, in

general, online communication is also more used by younger people than older generations,

and younger people feel more comfortable in doing so (Raacke & Bonds-Raacke, 2008).

36  

Therefore it is likely that these younger people have conducted more online Kony-related

activities than older people.

In line with the findings of Mondak et al. (2010) and Gerber et al. (2011), a last

notable finding concerns the role of extraversion in Kony protest. Extraversion showed to be a

positive predicator, of which it was significant until the fourth block where it became

marginal. This result shows that it is important to investigate different dimensions within

political participation (Dylko, 2010), since extraversion was a significant predictor for protest,

and not for all traditional forms of Kony-related participation.

A limitation of this study concerns the relatively low number of respondents in this

study, which did not allow for more extensive analyses of subgroups. It could therefore not be

representative of the whole population and it is therefore not entirely generalizable, since half

of all the respondents were aged between 14-24. Furthermore, concerning the critics on the

Kony-video as discussed above, a nuanced picture is missing concerning the positive or

negative tone in which people participated in interactive activities. This can be seen as another

implication and a more specific questioning in the future is therefore needed regarding

controversial or current affairs.

Regardless of the limitations indicated above, this study has shown that behaviorally

related factors, such as political talk, and activities conducted on the Internet, play a

prominent role in engaging in both political as well as in Kony-related forms of participation.

As seen from the amount of significant results, behavioral factors are a stronger predictor than

personality-related factors for various types of general political participation and Kony-related

participation. The fact that a relative high amount of different types of independent variables

are used, compared to other studies, can be seen as a strong point of this study. By having

relatively many predictors, the real effects of these variables can be analyzed. Besides, most

of the studies investigating protest rely only on self-report measures following a protest which

37  

could be inaccurate (Tittle & Hill, 1967; Muller, Seligson, Turan, 1987). Since this study has

collected authentic data of protesters, this can be seen as an unique feature of this study.

Appendix 1: Full question wording

Online informative political participation.

I read about political issues on the Internet.

I visit websites of political parties or social organizations.

I watch political videos on the Internet.

I search actively for background information concerning political issues on the

Internet, excluding news websites.

Kony-related online informative participation.

I have visited the website of the Kony 2012 campaign,

I have searched for more information on the Internet concerning the topics in the video

(Ugunda, Kony, child soldiers etc.).

Online interactive political participation.

I post comments about politically tinted issues on social networking sites like

Facebook, Twitter or Hyves.

I post comments on news sites or discussion forums concerning political topics.

Kony-related interactive participation.

I have commented on the Kony video on social networking sites like Facebook,

Twitter or Hyves.

I have posted one or more comments concerning the Kony video on news sites or

discussion forums, if they had shared the Kony video with other peoples (for example

via e-mail, or if they had placed the video on Facebook, Twitter or Hyves).

I have ‘liked’ the video on Facebook or respected the video on Hyves.

38  

Traditional forms of political participation.

I hand out campaign material of political parties or social organizations.

I take part in demonstrations.

I donate money to political parties or social organizations.

I sign petitions and/or signature lists on the Internet.

I call on people through the Internet to engage actively in politics (for example in

order to vote, to read something or to take action etc.).

I take part in political lectures, debates or manifestations.

Kony-related traditional forms of participation.

I have donated money or I have the intention to donate money to the organization that

made the Kony video.

I ordered the Kony 2012 action kit or I have the intention to order it.

I have the intention, or I attended the Kony protest on April 20th.

Internal political efficacy.

I see myself as someone who;

is competent enough to participate in politics;

has a good insight in the most important problems of The Netherlands’;

is better informed than others concerning politics and the government.

News media use.

The frequency of media use for news and current affairs regarding:

Television – Internet – Radio - Newspapers.

Extraversion

39  

I see myself as someone who;

is talkative;

is outgoing;

generates a lot of enthusiasm around me.

Openness to experience.

I see myself as someone who;

is original, comes up with new ideas;

is curious about many different things;

has an active imagination.

Political talk.

I talk about politics with family, friends or colleagues.

Kony talk.

I have talked about the Kony video with family, friends or colleagues.

Age – open question

Gender – male or female

Education – (Dutch education system)

Lager onderwijs

Lager beroeps-onderwijs (LTS, LEAO, etc)

MAVO/MULO

MBO (MTS, etc)

HAVO/HBS/Atheneum/Gymnasium

HBO/wetenschappelijk onderwijs

Appendix 2: Correlation matrix

40  

41  

Notes

1. All multiple regression analyses were tested on multicollinearity. All VIF-values were < 5,

which means that no multicollinearity was found.

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