This study examined the influencing factors of digital participation, including digital skills, interpersonal communication, online immersion and mediating roles of online interpersonal communication and online immersion. This study selected 1,204 samples from the 2017 Chinese General Social Survey. Amos 26.0 was used to test the theoretical model using the structural equation model (SEM). The study found that digital skills positively affect digital participation, digital skills positively affect online interpersonal communication and online immersion, and online interpersonal communication and online immersion positively affect digital participation. Online interpersonal communication and online immersion were found to significantly mediate the nexus between digital skills and digital participation. Moreover, income was found to be no longer a significant factor in the relationship of digital skills on digital participation. This study found the mediating roles of online interpersonal communication and online immersion between digital skills and digital participation, which was not available in previous studies. This result proved that the interaction between participants and the subjective immersive experience via the network are crucial for digital participation, and that the close information communication with different populations and an immersive network environment can facilitate the interactive expression of participants in cyberspace. The study also found that at least in China, the income gap is no longer a major factor affecting the relationship between digital skills and digital participation. The purpose of the study is to examine the influencing factors of digital participation, including digital skills, interpersonal communication, online immersion and mediating roles of online interpersonal communication and online immersion. The study selected 1,204 samples from the 2017 China General Social Survey. Amos 26.0 was used to test the theoretical model using the structural equation model (SEM). The conclusions are that this study revealed the key role of digital skills in improving digital participation and proposed strategies to strengthen digital skills training and education and optimize digital platform page operation. In addition, this study examined the positive effects of online interpersonal communication and online immersion on digital participation. The implications are that this study demonstrated that online interpersonal communication and immersion played an intermediary role in the process from digital skills to digital participation, which enriched the understanding of the changes of communication relationship and physical and mental perception produced by individuals through networks. Meanwhile, this study indicated that gender, education, and regional differences influenced the results, and it is necessary to further improve the measures of digital platforms in content guidance and target group selection. The limitations of the study are that this study was mainly aimed at adults, as data on the digital participation of adolescents is insufficient. Meanwhile, this study did not investigate a specific group, and future research could be targeted from the economic, education, and other aspects of classification research.
