Rocking the Vote and More - Google Analytics Demystified

Rocking the Vote and More: An Experimental Study
ofthe Impact of Youth Political Portals
Michael A. Xenos
Kyurim Kyoung
A B S T R A C T . This study provides a controlled lest of the effects of youth-oriented political
portals. Based on existing theories of the individual effects of Interne! u.sc, we hypothesize that
these sites may facilitate political engagement among memhers of their target audience in a variety
of ways, but we also consider the possibilily thai such effects may ho moderated hy prior levels of
political interest. Observations are drawn from a Wcb-hascd experiment administered lo undergraduates at a major midwestern university at the height of the 2006 election season. Findings indicate
weak to nonsignificant main effects for exposure to youth-oriented political portals on self-reported
cognitive engagement with election information, and a pattern of differential effects of exposure on
opinion formation and domain-specific political efficacy, based on users' prior levels of interest in
politics.
K E Y W O R D S . Internet, online politics, political efficacy, youth
The events surrounditig the 2004 presidential
election sparked a lively debate over the youth
vote. Prior to the election, commentators and
academics cited the dramatic growth in efforts
to mobilize new, and in particular young,
voters. Notably, MTV's familiar "Rock the
Vote" campaign was joined by a number of
other high-profile efforts, virtually all of which
featured a significant onlitie presence atid
conducted large portions of their communication and mobilization efforts through the Web,
e-mail, and other relatively new forms of
comtmuiication technology,
After Election Day, early postmortems on
campaigns such as Rock the Vote were split. At
first, these efforts were colorfully declared
fruitless, often on the grounds that the fraction
of all ballots that were cast by young people
remaitied under 20%, displaying no major
chatige sitice the last presidential election, and
that the youth vote failed to swing the outcome
in favor of John Kerry. Consider, for example.
Michael A. Xenos is an assistant professor in the department of Communication Arts at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. He conducts research on the poliiical impacts of new media, particularly as they relate
to young people and the electoral process. He is also interested in the broader implications of online communication for processes of public deliberation.
Kyurim Kyoung is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication Arts, University of WisconsinMadison. Her research focuses on ihe impacts of new communication technologies on priKesses of poliiical
stK'ialization among young [icoplc.
This research was made possible hy a grant to the first author from the University tii Wisct)nsln-Madison
Graduate School Research Committee. The data presented licrc will be deposited at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison Data & Information Services Center (DISC) upon publication, and thereafter will be
available at the DISC Wch site: http://www.disc.wisc.edu/archive.html.
Address correspondence to: Michael A. Xenos, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 6136 Vilas Communication Hall, 821 University Avenue, Madison, Wl 53706. (E-mail: [email protected]).
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Journal of Information Technology & Politics. Vol. 5{2) 2008
Available online at http://www.haworthpress.com
© 2008 by The Haworth Press. All rights reserved.
doi; 10.1080/19331680802291400
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JOURNAL OF INFORMA TION TECHNOLOG Y & POLITICS
the late Hunter S. Thompson's assessment:
"Yeah, we rocked the vote all right. . . . Those
little bastards betrayed us again" (Vargas, 2004,
p. COI). But this ftame was soon countered by
spokespersons for Rock the Vote itself and
scholars such as Thomits Patterson, who pointedly contended that these early assessments
were "badly off the mark" (n.d., p. 5). The
counterframe pointed out that while the youth
vote changed little as compared with voting
rates among older Americans or when
expressed as a proportion of total ballots, the
percentage of young people casting ballots had
changed substatttially (frotn 42.3% to 51%).
Viewed in this light, the 2004 youth vote represented an increase of 4.6 million voters under
30 and the greatest increase in the absoltite
number of young voters since 1972 (Coles,
2004; Patterson, n.d.). In addition, young voters
were not only ttn'ning out to the polls in record
nutnbers, but also paying attention to, as well as
reading and talking about, the election markedly more than in previous years (Andolina &
Jenkins, 2004). Examining trends from this
angle, it thus would appear that youth voter
mobilization efforts, including online campaigns
such as the one waged through the Rock the
Vote Web site, may have made positive contributions to youth civic engagement in 2004.
There are, however, few empirical studies
concerning how and in what ways online initiatives targeted at young voters may contribute to
youth political engagement. To be sure, a good
deal of the literature on Internet comtnunication
and politics suggests that such Web sites have
the potential to increase political interest, attitudinal engagement, and political participation
(Kalyanaraman & Sundar, 2(X)6; Lupia &
Philpot, 2005; Tolbert & MacNeil, 2003). However, a number of studies foctised on recent
trends in youth engagement suggest that the
impact is slight or indirect at best. For example,
survey data from 2004 suggest that young people weie stimulated to greater levels of political
engagetnent in the 2004 catnpaign primarily
because of its "issues, personalities and intense
partisanship" (Patterson, n.d., p. 7). Aggressive
off-litie mobilization and get-out-the-vote
efforts also have been identified as partially
responsible for healthier youth turnout in 2004
(Lopez, Kirby, & Sagoff, 2004). Examining
online political cotnmunication in general and
youth-directed political Web sites as well,
Xenos and Foot (2007) also suggest that such
content is unlikely to reach all but the most
interested would-be young voters. Indeed, a
variety of studies point to a differential effects
model for understanding the impact of online
political cotnmunication as tnoderated by political interest or other individual characteristics
atid behaviors (Bimber, 2003; Evelatid, Marton,
& Seo, 2004; Nisbet & Scheufele, 2004; Prior,
2005; Shah, Kwak, & Holbert, 2001).
This article presents results frotn an experimental study of the effects of online youth politics initiatives conducted at the height of the
2006 midterm election season. Guided by
recent political communication research on the
effects of Internet communication on political
engagetnent, we designed an experiment to test
the impact of two of the most significant youth
politics portals on a variety of political engagemetit indicators, within the context of an ongoing election cycle. The findings identify bolh
sites us particularly effective in communicating
basic information on the voting process itself
(e.g., registration and finding one's polling
place), but litnited in their ability to facilitate
political engagement in other ways, especially
among users with lower levels of political
interest. We conclude by discussing the implications of this research for future scholarly and
policy-oriented efforts to understand and facilitate the effectiveness of youth-oriented political
communication online.
The Internet and PoUticai Engagement
Researchers have wondered for some time
about the potential of the Internet for facilitating political engagement, particularly among
the technologically savvy younger generation
(Delli Carpini, 2000). Although research in this
area covers a wide variety of characteristics of
online cotnmunication, we focus on ihree as
especially relevant to processes by which
young people may be mobilized to greater
engagement in electoral politics. Specifying
these media characteristics and the possible
ways that online political comtnunication
Xenos and Kyonng
generally may stimulate greater political
involvement provides an important theoretical
context for considering the effectiveness of
youth-oriented political portals that seek to
realize this potential for a particular demographic group. In particular, we consider the
Internet's unique capabilities for (a) efficient
information transmission, (b) interactivity, and
(c) targeting specific subsets of the electorate.
First, online communication provides an
unprecedented conduit for the relatively cheap
and efficient communication of large quantities of
political information (Bimber, ^003; Rheingold,
2(KX)). In line with an "in.strumenta!" approach
to understanding individual-level effects of
Internet use on political engagement, this provides the most straightforward set of expectations concerning the potential of youth-oriented
political portals (see Bimber, 2003). By reducing the cost of acquiring information on the
logistics of registration and voting, as well as
information on candidates and issues, such portals may help facilitate youth political engagement by helping young citizens think about
elections, form preferences about issues and
candidates, and find their way to their local
polling stations.
A second characteristic of online political
communication relevant to understanding the
possible effects of youth-oriented political
portals is its interactive nature. Considered by
some to be the quintessential element of Web
communication (e.g.. Buey, 2004; McMillan &
Hwang, 2002), interactivity may be another
way in which online political communication
can serve to facilitate greater engagement in the
political arena. Conceptualizing interactivity in
a variety of ways, research has demonstrated
that interactive content can have a number of
positive effects on political engagement. For
example, in their study of interactivity on
candidate Web sites, Sundar, Kalyanaraman,
and Brown (2003) found that greater levels of
interactivity (operational i zed as site depth, or
the number of clickable pages) stimulated more
favorable perceptions of the fictional candidate
depicted in their study, as well as greater agreement with the candidate's issue stances. Examining both technical forms of interactivity
(consisting of site features enabling two-way
177
exchanges among site visitors and site producers)
as well as text-based forms (such as t1rst-person
text and photo captions), Warnick, Xenos,
Endres, and Gastil (2005) found moderate
levels of interactivity on fictional candidate
Web sites stimulated significantly greater cognitive engagement with site content. Studying
the effects of interactivity on young people
during the 2004 campaigns, Tedesco (2006)
also found similar effects, as well as increases
in political efficacy among participants in his
study exposed to more interactive Web materials. Clearly then, it is reasonable to identify
interactivity as another possible mechanism
through which youth-oriented political content
on the Web may facilitate youth engagement.
Assuming the presence of useful information
about candidates and campaigns, interactivity
may serve to draw young voters into greater
cognitive as well as affective engagement with
election-related issues.
In addition to its ability to transmit vast sums
of political information efficiently at relatively
low cost and its potential for interactive
exchanges, a third feature of online political
communication useful for understanding the
impacts of youth politics sites concerns the targeting of distinct audiences. In part the culmination of the first two factors, the tendency for
online content and user behavior to fragment
around myriad differences in interest and
preferences, is yet another feature of online
communication that scholars have identified as
one of the defining characteristics of new media
(Bimber, 2003; Howard, 2006; Schier, 2000;
Sunstein, 2001). Given relatively low production costs, the ability of users to navigate efficiently to sites that refiect their unique
perspectives, and the tendency of similar kinds
of sites to be nested within hyperlink networks,
it is important to consider the tailoring of communication to particular audiences as a third
process by which particular kinds of sites might
affect the attitudes and behaviors of their users.
Although specific re.search on Internet
effects in this area is scant, political scientists
have long noted the connection between political engagement and targeted recmitment efforts
(Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995). Additionally, research on Web customization in general
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JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY a¿ POLITICS
suggests that when site producers specifically
tailor or target cotnmunications to a particular
audience, users are more likely to hold positive
attitudes toward the site and its content. Positing that customization and targeting play upon
individuals' desire to affirm their individual
identities, for example, Kalyanaraiiian atid
Sundar (2006) conducted an experiment in
which participants were exposed to varying levels
of customized content through an all-purpose
Web portal, and found that increasing customization was indeed associated with more
positive attitudes toward the portal. Further,
focusitig in particular on the effects of online
political communication consumed by younger
users. Lupia and Philpot (2005) found that a
critical factor in stitnulating political interest
for this group thtough the Web was the extent
to which sites are perceived to be effective and
efficient for finding information that younger
users ate interested in; specifically. Lupia and
Philpot argue that "those [Web site producers]
who want to increase young adults' interest can
succeed if they tnake politics rnore relevant to
them" (2005, p. 1138).
Youth-Oriented Political Portals
With these concepts in mind, it is reasonable
to expect that youth-oriented political portal
Web sites like RocktheVote.com could help
stimulate greater levels of political engagement
among youthful site visitors. To begin with, the
world of youth-oriented civic and political Web
sites has grown dramatically in recent years
(Montgomery, Gottlieb-Robles, & Larson,
2(X)4). More important, along with the growth in
the number of sites there also has been a steady
increase in the amount of political information
youth politics sites provide. Examinitig the evolution of the "youth political Web sphere" from
2002 to 2004. Xenos and Bentiett (2007) found
that during that period the tutmber of Web sites
focusing speciftcally on electoral politics and targeted at American youth swelled ftom 22 to 35
identifiable sites, and that by 2004 the majority
of such sites provided "information on the elections in some fonn," hicluding "infonnation on
how to register to vote, and information about
events and ways to get involved" (p. 451 ).
Additionally, youth-oriented political Web
sites are targeted speciftcally at young people,
with general political inforrnation on candidates
and elections framed aroutid youth coticems and
presented in formats favored by young people.
For example, in addition to documenting the
growth in political information available through
youth politics sites, Xenos and Bennett (2007)
also found youth-oriented Web sites to be substantially more interactive than other online
political content, such as sites produced by political candidates; indeed, by 2(X)4 the "youth political Web sphere" had developed a dense network
structure with ample hyperlinks contiecting
youth sites with each other and, to a lesser
extent, with other key sources of political information on the Web (Xenos & Bennett, 2007).
Further, as explained directly on the "About
RTV" page of the Rock the Vote Web site (http://
www.rockthevote.com). the otganization's goal
is explicitly to harness "cutting-edge trends and
pop culture to make political participation cool."
In other words, youth politics portals offer information about issues and campaigns (and/or links
to such infomiation), and do so in an interactive
fashion that also potentially engages the identityaffirming process posited by Kalyanaraman and
Sundar (2006), which in this case may foster an
identity that includes cognitive engagement with
political infortnation as well as political participation as key attributes.
On the basis of these considerations, we
thus hypothesize that youth-oriented political
Web sites facilitate greater levels of political
engagement atnong their targeted user base.
Speciftcally, we identify two specific mechanisms by which youth politics portals may contribute to political engagement among younger
users:
Hypothesis I. Exposure to youth-oriented political portals will be associated with greater levels
of cognitive engagement with election-related
infomiation and the formation of election-related
opinions.
Hypothesis 2. Exposure to youth-oriented political portals will be associated with positive
attitudes towatd political engagement.
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Xenos and Kyottng
The Potential for Differential Effects
As indicated at the outset, however, there are
a variety of reasons to question whether there is
a simple positive relationship between use of
youth politics Web sites and political engagement. At the surface, survey data from 2004
suggest that recent increases in political
engagement among younger people were
driven strongly by off-line forces, such as the
prevalence of issues especially of interest to
young people (e.g., the Iraq war), and traditional fonns of voter contact, rather than the
proliferation of online politics (Lopez et al.,
2004; Patterson, n.d.). At a deeper level,
research on the effects of Internet use on political engagement consistently has found that
effects are often moderated by the individual
characteristics of users.
Dubbed the "psychological approach" by
Bimber (2(X)3; in contrast with the instrumental
approach discussed earlier), ihis perspective
theorizes that political effects of new media are
contingent on individuals' levels of sophistication, tnotives, and social context. Studies in this
vein suggest that we tiiight better understand
the effects of youth politics Web sites by considering the possibility that they may exert differential effects on site visitors based on
relevant personal characteristics. For example.
in the realm of online news, Eveland et al.
(2004) found that the level of experience with
using the Web for news moderated gains in
knowledge. Further, positing a process by
which talk helps to distill and elaborate on
information encountered online, Nisbet and
Scheufele (2004) found frequency of political
talk lo moderate the relationship between Internet use and a variety of political engagement
outcomes (i.e., political efficacy, knowledge,
and political participation). Finally, research on
general Internet use and social capital also suggests that a key determinant of whether this
relationship is positive or negative is whether
users tend to seek information from the Web, or
if they use it more for social-recreational purposes (Shah et al., 2001).
Within the context of political portals
designed to increase political engagement
among American youth, we identify users'
pre-existing level of interest in politics as a
likely moderator. The rationale behind this is
that, as a group, youth traditionally have been at
the forefront of technology adoption and are
already among the most likely to have experience seeking political information online
(Rainie, Cornfield, & Horrigan, 2005). Thus,
we assume that variation on this front would be
a poor tnoderator lor the youth demographic.
Political interest, however, has been identified
as a significant predictor of political knowledge
(Delli Carpini & Keeter, 19%), as well as political participation in general (Verba et al., 1993).
Moreover, political interest is also strongly
associated with political discu.ssion, identified
earlier as a moderator of Internet effects
(McLeod et al., 1999; Pan, Shen, Paek, & Sun.
2006). Indeed, interest itself has been identified
as a moderator of Intemet effects in prior
research and a significant predictor of online
political mobilization (Krueger, 2006; Xenos &
Moy, 2007).
This suggests that the degree to which online
efforts to stimulate political involvement of
young people are successful may not only hitige
on engaging youth "on their own lertns" (Lupia
& Philpot, 2005, pp. 1137-1138), but also on
whether site visitors have sufficient motivation
and basic political schema to begin with.
Although the interactive and targeted communication provided by these Web sites can
motivate youth and stimulate their interest, it is
reasonable to expect that, particularly in the
short term, those who already possess a
modicum of interest or motivation may be best
positioned to take advantage of the opportunities and information provided by these sites.
We thus offer the following research question
as a cotnplement lo our two hypotheses: To
what extent are the effects of youth-oriented
political portals on youth political engagetnent
tnoderated by initial levels of political interest?
METHODS
To provide a controlled test of the effects of
youth-oriented political Web sites, we created a
three-condition, between-subjects design in
which participants engaged in an eight-minute
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JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ai POLITICS
Web-browsing exercise, following a brief pretest, which included a measure of our tnoderator variable: political interest. The browsing
session was followed by a post-test survey
designed to probe for potential differences in
cognitive engagement and attitudes among sttbjects resulting frotn interaction with the variotis
treatment Web sites. Panicipants (A' = 197) were
recatited from ititroditctory courses in political
scietice and coninuinications at a large midwestern university. While certainly not representative
of the general population of 18-29 year olds, the
participants lie squarely within the target demographics for the sites under analysis.
experience. After precisely eight minutes, the
ex peri tuen ta I software terminated the browsing
sessions and directed participants to the posttest
survey, which began with items that asked participants to evaluate their browsing sessions,
and tnoved on to questions about their opinions
on the official ballot items as well as a variety
of other political attitudes atid behaviors.
Following the logic outlitied by Lupia and
Philpot (2005), we designed the experiment to
evaluate the impact of particular Web sites
rather than youth Web sites in general or the
Web in general for that tnatter. Indeed, given the
vast anay of Web sites available to users, it is
AH data were collected in a computer labora- important to distinguish analytically between
tory between October 30th and November 7th, studies concerning the impact of the Web, and
2006, with the majotity of observations taking those that enable distinct itiferences concerning
place tiear or on Election Day. The experimen- the impacts of particular locations in cybertal stimuli and survey instruments were admin- space. Based on a variety of considerations,
istered using the MediaLab software platform iticlitding a preliminary network atialysis of the
(Empirisoft Corporation, New York, NY). youth political Web sphere cotiducted prior to
Upon arrival in the lab, a lab attendant seated fielding the experiment, we selected the Web
each participant at a computer tertninal. The sites of Rock the Vote (http://www.rockthevote.
first screen on each terminal displayed a state- com) and the New Voters Project (http://www.
ment approved by the university's hitman sub- newvotersproject.org) as our primary stitmulus
jects review panel informing participants of sites to create two youth-politics conditions.
what the study would entail. Consentitig partici- Specifically, we selected Rock the Vote ba.sed
pants then began the pretest, which enabled us on its status as the tnost widely known site of its
to tap pre-existing levels of interest in politics kind, and the New Voters Project on the basis of
among participants prior to their interaction its high level of influence within the hyperlink
with the stimulus Web sites. The pretest con- network. These characteristics of the sites are
cluded by informing participants that they consistent with a Freeman degree analysis of
would be asked a nutnber of qtiestions concern- each site within the larger youth politics Web
ing the election after having eight minutes to sphere, which included 134 Web siles during the
use the Web to learn about the candidates and fall of 2006. We conducted this analysis using
issues that would itppear on official ballots in the UCINET software package (Analytic Techthe area. Participants were also itiformed that nologies, Lexington, KY). Following the logic
they would be asked to evaluate their experi- of social tietwork analysis, this procedure
ence with the first Web site that appeared in the etiiibles us to examine bolh the influence of each
browset\ which was randomly assigned. node in the network, as well as its prestige, by
Although paiticipants were able to navigate looking 10 linkages flowing to or from each
freely during the browsing session using avail- actor (Hanneman & Riddle, 2005). Based on
able hyperlinks on each page, the address bars this analysis, we fmd that Rock the Vole clearly
were removed frotii (he otherwise standard outpaces the New Voters Project in terms of
browsers, and patticipants were instructed to prestige, receiving 139 links ftotii other points
fully explore the first site encountered before in the network, as compared to only 21 such
venturing away. This portion of the protocol links for the New Voters Project. Alternatively,
was designed to preserve an element of control looking at influence, or outlink patterns, we see
over exposure to the stitmulus Web sites while the New Voters Project Web site supplying 279
also retaining elements ofthe traditional browsing linkages to other destinaliotis within the
Xenos and Kyoung
network, as compared to only 6 for Rock the
Vote's Web site.
Participants in the third condition were taken
to (he Google home page and instructed to use
the site as they normally would. In this sense,
the design enables us to isolate effects stemming from either or both of the youth politics
Web sites, as cotnpared to an undirected or selfdirected session with the Web in general.
Ultimately, 74 participants were assigned to the
Rock the Vote condition, 64 to the New Voters
Project condition, and 59 to the Google condition.
Assessing the Impact of Youth-Oriented
Political Web Sites: Key Outcomes
We chose three sets of post-test items to test
our hypotheses and assess the impacts of the
Rock the Vote and the New Voters Project Web
sites on our undergraduate participants. The
first two sets of measures were designed to test
Hypothesis I (HI), which concerns cognitive
engagement with the candidates and issues surrounding the election, as well as the process of
voting itself. The third set, designed to test
Hypothesis 2 (H2), deals with attitudes toward
political engagement.
The first set of dependent variables consists
of two self-report items that tap the usefulness
of the Web sites for the assigned information
task. Specifically, we asked participants
whether the site in question was helpful to them
"in thinking about the major issues in the various races" and "in understanding how to cast
[their] ballot on Election Day (voter registration, polling places, etc.)." Responses to these
itetns ranged from 0 (not helpful at all) to 3
(very helpful), and provided a subjective indicator of the degree to which metnbers of the target user-base for such sites found them suitable
to one of their primary purposes.
The second set of outcome variables we
examined was designed to assess the extent to
which the browsing sessions may have helped
participants form opinions on ballot items that
would appear in the geographic area in which
the study was conducted. To examine this
opinion-fortnation prt)cess, we included items
in the post-test survey that asked participants
which candidate they preferred in their state's
m
gubernatorial and Senate races, as well as their
di.strict's House race. Additionally, we asked
participants to express an opinion on a ballot
item concerning gay marriage. For each item,
participants could either express a preference or
mark a "don't know/no opinion" response.
These responses were converted later into a
count of up to four ballot items for which participants had a clear preference. These measures enabled us to examine, in more objective
terms, the extent to which the sites helped our
youthful participants engage cognitively with a
critical part of the voting process—forming
opinions to express on Election Day.
The third set of outcome variables we examined was designed to gauge the effect of exposure to the stimulus Web sites on attitudes young
people hold toward political engagetnent or
political efficacy. In the classic sense, political
efficacy refers to "feeling that individual political action does have, or can have, an impact on
the political process . . . and that the individual
citizen can play a part in bringing about this
change" (Catnpbell, Gurin, & Miller, 1954,
p. 187). This concept long has been studied as a
critical element in explaining variations in political engagetnent. Indeed, research has shown that
feelings of citizen competence and confidence in
the political systetn aœ powerful predictors of
patiicipation (Abramson, 1983; Rosenstone &
Hanson, 1993; Verba et al., 1995).
Rather than deploying political efficacy in
general as an outcotne measure, however, we
decided to narrow our focus to a more contextspecific form, which we call Internet-specific
political efficacy. As Bandura (1997) has
pointed out. political efficacy in the global
sense summarizes a diversity of beliefs and attitudes that span a variety of contexts. In addition, a nutnber of scholars fruitfully have
explored particular types of efficacy, iticluding
protest-specific, deliberation, and information
forms (Boyle, 2004; Mottell, 2003, 2005;
Tedesco, 2007; Wollman & Stouder, 1991). For
this study, we chose to examine efficacy specifically tailored to the Internet as a medium for
learning about, participating in, and affecting
politics.
As defined by Kyoung (2006), Internetspecific political efficacy refers to "a feeling
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JOURNAL OF INFORMA TION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS
TABLE 1. Dependent Variables
Browsing helped think about issues
Browsing heiped understand the voting process
Ballot opinions heid
Internet Poiiticai Efficacy (Internal)
Internet Political Efficacy (External)
Min
Max
0
0
0
1.83
1.75
3
3
4
7
6.75
Mean
SD
0.75
0.95
1.16
0.94
0.95
1.30
3.ie
4.66
4.42
N= 197.
that political activity taking place on the Internet can have an influence on political processes
and one's confidence in his/her own capabilities" to exercise such infiuence (p. 50). Based
on the content and design of youth politics portal sites, we believe this efficacy measure offers
a particularly appropriate measure of site effectiveness. Following the evolution of research on
political efficacy, which stre.sses the importance
of clearly stipulated attitudinal objects, we used
two indices. These indices minor the distinction in the literature between internal efficacy,
where the object is the self, and external efficacy, for which the object is one's political
context (Craig & Maggiotto, 1982). Within the
context of the current study, our Internetspecific internal political efficacy index was
based on a series of items asking participants
their level of agreement (on a scale of I to 7)
with statements such as "I consider myself
skillful in using the Internet to search for information on politics and public issues" and "I feel
well-equipped to use the Internet to express
myself politically." The Intern et-s pec i fie external efficacy index used the same format, with
statements such as "The Internet allows ordinary people to have more say in government"
and "The Internet makes public officials care
more about the concerns of ordinary people." In
all, the Internet-specific internal political efficacy index included six items (Cronbach's
alpha = .71), and the Intemet-specific external
political efficacy index included four items
(Cronbach's alpha = .70). Prior empirical studies using these measures have revealed these
constructs as both distinct from traditional or
global efficacy and reasonably predicted by relevant independent variables (Kyoung, 2006).
Information on the distributions of all dependent variables used in this study can be found in
Table 1.
I
Political interest
To shed light on our research question conceniing the potential moderating role played by
political interest, we also included a measure of
participants' interest in politics in our analysis.
Specifically, we asked participants to estimate
how often they follow politics and public
affairs, using a format similar to that used in the
National Elections Studies and other national
survey protocols. To reduce context effects, or
the chance that responses to this item would be
affected by other questions in the survey
(Bishop, 1987), as well as to capture interest
prior to administration of the stimulus, we
placed this item at the very beginning of the
pretest survey instrument. Responses ranged
from "hardly at all" to "most of the time," producing a measure ranging from 0 to 3 (AÍ = 1.77,
SD = 0.68).
RESULTS
To assess the potential for exposure to youthoriented political Web sites to facilitate greater
political engagement among young site visitors,
we began with a simple comparison of frequencies or means for all five of our outcome
variables across the three conditions. These
results included substantial (though not entirely
expected) differences across the conditions for
the subjective ratings of site usefulness, but
suggested no significant main effects fiowing
i83
Xeitos atid Kyoung
frotn any of the sites to the number of ballot
opinions held or Internet-specific political
efftcacy.
Examining the subjective reports of cognitive engagetnent provided by our participants,
the most useful sites for learning about issues
were Rock the Vote.com and Google, which
received mean ratings of 1.08, {SD = 0.81) and
1.02 {SD = 0.68). respectively. Surprisingly, the
New Voters Project Web site received a signiftcantly lower rating (M - 0.55, SD = 0.64), indicating that participants found this site less
useful, relative to either the Rock the Vote Web
site or a simple Google search session undirected by the experitiienters. Results of crosstab chi-square test comparing the ordinal
ratings across conditions provide support for
the notion that these differences in the ratings
patterns are significant (p < .001). In conttast,
an exatnination of subjective ratings of the sites
in terms of their provision of basic information
about the voting process yields results that are
mote consistent with expectations. On this
itetn, the New Voters Project and Rock the
Vote sites clearly outperformed Google, receiving mean ratings of 1.41 {SD = 0.79) and 1.61
{SD = 1.06), respectively, as compared to
Google's mean rating of 0.83 (SD = 0.81).
Again, we assessed the differences in responses
to this item with a cross-tab chi-square test,
which confirmed that these variations were also
significant (p < .(X)l ). For ea.se of interpretation.
Figure 1 provides a graphical sumtnary of
means for both usefulness ratings across the
conditiotis.
In all, these ftndings provide only modest
support at best for HI, concerning the facilitation of cognitive engagement, and no support
for H2, which deals with attitudes toward political engagement. Specifically, our results suggest that sites produced by organizations such
as Rock the Vote and the New Voters Project
effectively provide information on the voting
process, but likely do not have a significant
direct impact on young voters' abilities to deal
with issues and choices related to voting or
their attitudes towatd the Internet as a political
tool. Indeed, in the case of learning about candidates and issues, our results indicate that participants found a simple Google search devised
on their own was more helpful than visiting the
Web site produced by the New Voters Project.
To be fair, it is clear that conveying basic infortnation about the voting process is likely the top
priority for the producers of such sites (a point
we shall retum to later in the discussion). Additionally, it is worth recallitig that in comparing
to the Google search condition we are in effect
comparing one site to all those available
through the rest of the Intertiet. However, the
FIGURE 1. Subjective ratings of browsing session usefulness by condition.
Rock the Vote
New Voters Project
B Help«d think aboutissues
Google
BHetped understand th» votin g process
184
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS
absence of main effects for outcomes other than
learning about how lo register and where to
vote is inconsistent with the expectations we
derived earlier concetning the potential for such
sites to facilitate greater involvement in politics
among the young people they are targeted
toward. This raises questions conceming
whether the youth politics sites we examined
truly have no effect on engagement with issues
or attitudes about the Web as a political tool, or
whether such effects may be concentrated
among a subset of our participants, as suggested
by our research question.
To address whether the effects of youthoriented political poitals are best understood as
moderated by pre-existing levels of political
interest, we specified a series of regression
models, using dummy coding for exposure to
each Web site and the Google condition as the
reference category. These regressions enabled
us to test for main effects of the stitnulus Web
sites in question, as well as interactions with
political ititerest. For our subjective Web site
ratings variables, as well as the Internet-specific
internal and external political efficacy variables, we tested for these effects using ordinary
least squares methods. In the case of the issue
opinion counts, which may be inteipreted as the
number of successful opinion formation processes over a set of four trials (representing each
ballot item), we specified a logistic-binomial
model (Gelman & Hill, 2007).
In tnodeling subjective ratings of cognitive
engagement, entering political interest and the
site multiplied by interest interactions into our
specifications resulted in washing out any main
effects for exposure to the youth politics sites,
and did not yield significant results for the
interaction terms. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in the
case of ratings for how helpful lhe browsing
session was for helping participants understand
the voting process, we even found a significant
negative effect for political interest (B = -.39,
SE B = A^, p = .04). In other words, these
results suggest that participants with high levels
of prior political interest were the most likely to
rate their browsing session negatively, perhaps
because many of them already knew or understood much of the basic information the two
youth politics sites are designed to convey. This
is consistent with our suspicion that pre-existing
levels of political interest are a critical part of
understanding how such sites may affect young
users, who may vary sub.stantially in the extent
to which they already understand basic parts of
the political process, such as registering to vote
and finding their polling place.
The picture becomes even more interesting
when we turn to whether participants held opinions on the full slate of ballot items available to
them and our Internet-specific political efficacy
measures. The full results of these regressions
are presented in Tables 2 and 3. Here, the
results offer a strongly affirmative answer to
the question of whether the effects of youth politics sites may be moderated by political interest. In the case of modeling the number of
ballot opinions held, we find that the interaction
term New Voters Project x Political Interest is
positive and significant (p = .01). Indeed, if we
simply estimate the probability of holding a full
slate of ballot opinions versus something less
(results not shown), the associated odds ratio
for the New Voters Project interaction suggests
that politically interested participants randomly
assigned to this site in particular were over four
times more likely to hold an opinion on all four
TABLE 2. Logistic Binomial Regression:
Number of Ballot Opinions Held
Coefficients
Experimental Conditions
Rock the Vote
New Voters Project
Moderator
Political Interest
Site/Interest Interactions
Rock the Vote x Political Interest
New Voters Project x Political Interest
Constant
N
LL
'p< .05; "p< .01.
-.55
(.59)
-1.47*
(64)
1.62**'
(-42)
.31
(.33)
.98'*
(.36)
-1.27
(.72)
197
-264.87
44.06*"
Xenos and Kyoung
TABLE 3. OLS Regressions: Internet-Specific
Political Efficacy
Experimental Conditions
Rock the Vote
New Voters Project
Adjusted R^
Moderator
Political Interest
Adjusted R^
Site/Interest Interactions
Rock the Vote x Political Interest
New Voters Project x Political Interest
Final Adjusted R^
Internal
Efficacy
Externai
Efficacy
-.05
(.17)
-.01
(.17)
.00
.01
(.17)
.14
(.17)
.00
.50'"
(.09)
.12
.29"
(.10)
.03
.44*
(.23)
.53'
(.24)
.13
.59*
(.24)
.59"
(.25)
.06
plots are based on estimated internal and external Internet-specific political efficacy values,
using the results from the regressions presented
in Table 3, and imputed values of 1 and 3 for
political interest. For each set of estimates, we
see relatively little difference between ititerested and noninterested participants exposed to
the other sites. However, exposure lo the youth
politics Web sites introduced differences of a
standard deviation or more in the efficacy values of participants at each end of the political
interest scale. In other words, for our opinion
formation and efficacy outcotnes, we found that
the benefits of exposure to youth politics portals appear to be concentrated atnong those
already possessing a tnodicutii of intere.st in
politics, with tiegligible to negative effects on
the participant base as a whole.
N= 197.
#p<.10;'p<.05;**p<.01.
of the ballot items included in the post-test
instrument.
In the case of Internet-specific political efficacy, we also see positive interaction effects
between political interest and exposure to the
youth politics potials. A graphical representation
of these interactions is found in Figure 2. These
DISCUSSION
In this study we have provided a rare, controlled exploration of the effects of youth politics Web sites on a critical portion of their
intended audience. By and large, our findings
are consistent with the conclusions of those
who have considered the role played by such
sites in the political process using tnore indirect
methods (e.g., content analysis and survey
FIGURE 2. Interaction plots: youth sites, political interest, and Internet-specific political efficacy.
Rock Oit Vote:
Internet-Specific Internal EHicacy
Rock the Vote:
Inl«rnet-S|iecirc Extiinal Etficacy
^ ^
""^
" "- . ,
ai«! süBi
1
Naw Voters ProjscI:
Itverr^et-Specific Int
Lo* tiffiKiU
FfDck tuVtita
HmhlrtwKl]
Nsw Votars PtoJBci:
Internet-Specific External Efficacy
186
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGYi& POLITICS
tnethods); indeed, they suggest that it is in the
interplay of off-line and online factors that we
see the most interesting developments. However, our findings offer a tnore precise attempt
at parsing out the degree to which online political communication can infiuence political
engagement atnong young voters than comparisons of broader trends allow. Specifically, the
results of our controlled experiment suggest
that the Web cotiiponents of campaigns such as
Rock the Vote and the New Voters Project have
only a slightly positive effect on educating
young people about the voting process, bttt that
moie substantial effects are concentrated
atnong those who are already interested in politics. In other words, our data stiggest that these
sites may offer a novel and marginally effective
way of introdttcing young people to basic political information and the logistics of the voting
process. But, as we see in the cases of opinion
formation and efficacy, these sites tnay truly
"rock" the vote only for those who already have
expressed a noticeable desire to get out on the
dance fi oor.
Before considering ihe theoretical and practical implications of these findings, it is important to discu.ss briefly some litnitations of the
study and the possible effects of these limitations on the results. First, we note an itnportant
cost associated with the ptecision afforded by a
controlled expetimetit. That is, our observations
were gathered in a laboratory and were based
on a relatively brief exposure to the .stimulus
materials. To make the setting more natural, we
did allow participants to more or less browse
the Web as they normally would, and we purposefully fielded the study at the height of the
election season. However, as wilh any laboratory experiment, conditions were somewhat different from those in which the stimuli are
typically encountered. Further, the design does
not enable us to make claims about long-term
effects of repeated or habitual exposure to the
sites, which may afford less interested visitors
greater opportunities for realizing gains in
political engagement through interactions with
site content.
A second limitation concerns the participant
pool. As a convenience sample recruited from
introductory courses at a major university, the
participate pool noticeably excludes young voters who are not in college. These noncollege
youth represent more than half of the 18 to 24
year old citizens in the United States, and evidence indicates that these individtials vote less
frequently than youth enrolled in higher edtication (Lopez, Kirby, Sagoff, & Kolaczkowski,
2005). Because of this, we believe that had we
been able to recruit participants from both college and noncollege populations, we may have
seen greater variation in political interest, and
possibly in patterns of "Don't know" responses
to our sample ballot items. In either case, we
contend that broadening the pool of participants
actually could intensify our findings concerning
the moderating role played by political interest
and could reveal stronger main effect patterns.
However, without specific data from noncollege youth, we at^ forced simply to note this
feature of the participant pool and recommend a
standard level of caution with regard to generalizing the findings beyond college -studetits.
These limitations notwithstanding, we
contend that this study makes two important
contributions to our knowledge of the role
played by youth-oriented political pottals in
contemporary politics. The first deals with the
impact of variations atnong users, while the
second deals with the itnportatice of attending
to differences between particular Web sites. We
conclude by di.scussing these contributions and
their implications for both practitioners interested in using the Internet to facilitate youth
political engagement further, as well as
researchers interested in further study of the
impact of Internet use on political participation
among young people.
With respect to user characteristics, this
study provides direct evidence that differences
in user motivations can play a key role in relationships between Internet use and political
engagetnent. Even among the subset of young
voters included in our experiment, it is clear
that at the intersection of youth, politics, and
new media, we do not find one mottolithic
"youth" audience. Within this group, there are
individuals with low levels of interest in politics, who appear to have significantly different
informational and practical needs than those
with higher levels of political interest. And,
Xenos and Kyonng
187
when using a medium noted for its remarkably including youth-oriented political portals and
malleable nature (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman, other general interest sites on electoral politics and
& Robinson. 2001 ), users appear to come away public affairs (Xenos & Bennett, 2007). Also,
with markedly differing experiences, based on participants began their browsing sessions at a
this initial level of political interest. Moreover, randomly selected stimulus Web site but were
these differences do not appear to move in an still able to travel to other sites via hyperlinks.
equalizing direction (in which low-interest In this sen.se, one can think of the design as testusers might come to resemble high-interest ing the effects of starting a browsing session at
users after interaction with youth-politics por- some particular point within the youth political
tals). Instead, as we see in the case of Internet- Websphere, versus a more open-ended entry
specific political efficacy, these interactive into political resources on the Web. Along these
effects point to an exacerbation of differences lines, we may interpret differences between the
between politically interested and noninterested two youth portal conditions as potLMitialiy stemusers, such that the former are encouraged to ming from structural differences between the
pursue further political engagement online (and outlink-rich New Voters Project Web site and
to see such engagement as worthwhile), while the relatively outlink-poor Rock the Vote Web
the latter actually appear to become less inter- site (Xenos & Bennett, 2007). Recall, for examested in the Internet as an avenue for political ple, the results of our logistic regression model
action.
of subjects possessing a full slate of ballot opinIn addition to individual user differences, our ions: the strongest site x interest interaction was
findings also point to individual site differences for the New Voters Project condition. In this
as another critical element in understanding the way, the present study offers an example of
potential for online communication to facilitate how behavioral corollaries to the patterns
greater political involvement among American revealed in the burgeoning literature on hyperyouth. Although it may seem obvious to note link structui-es might be studied empirically. To
that the Internet is not monolithic, as Lupia and be sure, tnore controlled experimentation would
Philpot (2005) point out, most research on the be required to parse out the potential effects of
political effects of Internet use avoids taking link structure, site features, and, of course, site
this fact into consideration, instead looking at content. However, at a more general level, we
the effects of Intemet use "in general." Our believe the present study provides a unique
findings provide additional evidence in support example of how we might consider data on the
of this approach. While the.se findings do not location of a given site (or sites) within a wider
directly support Lupia and Philpot's theory of network of sites in future research on the politithe Web site-political interest relationship, they cal effects of Internet use.
Together, the insights provided by the
do lend important additional support to the
present
study not only help to develop further
argument that individual variations among Web
sites can have discernable and significant .scholarship on the political effects of Web communication, particularly among younger voters,
impacts on site visitors.
As an extension of this perspective, our find- but are also potentially useful for producers of
ings also identify a number of ways that political Web sites intended for young people.
researchers might further explore the impacts of Specifically, we hope that practitioners may be
site differences. For example, while not conclu- encouraged by our findings to intensify even
sive, we believe our findings provide sugges- further their use of Ihe unique targeting capabiltive evidence that the immediate network ities of Web communication, so that they may
structures surrounding Web sites may be rele- offer more specialized site experiences
vant to the ways that particular sites affect designed to provide maximum benefits to users
different kinds of users. Recall that our stimulus with varyitig levels of political interest. In this
Web sites were selected in part based on a network way, relevant subsets of the youth population
analysis of the "youth political Web.sphere," a each may find information that engages them
relatively dense hyperlink network of Web sites on their own terms, without either boring or
.r '
18S
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS
overwhelming them. Given available technologies and the patterns of effects apparent in this
and contetnporary studies, this would appear to
be an attractive strategy for reducing the differences in political engagement among youth
with varying levels of political interest, rather
than expanding them.
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