Whither Digital Equality?: An Empirical Study of the Democratic Divide

Beyond the access and skills divide, ICT-advanced countries pay attention to the divide in political participation online. Analyzing the Pew Internet American Life Project's 2008 pre-election survey, this paper empirically examines the existence of the democratic divide in American online politics The study tests whether demographic characteristics make a divide in online political involvement in campaigns The pattern of the democratic divide varies with the type of political activities on the Internet. The cross-group difference tests disclose the participatory divide by education and gender in campaign engagement. Instead of an educational gap, activities on social networking sites reveal a generational gap Political efficacy of the Internet as an avenue to involvement in and connection to campaigns and a new, reliable source of political information is a strong predictor for the probability of political activities online.