Citizenship Norms, Digital Media Use and Political Participation in Israel

• In Event: Social Media and Political Participation: A Comparative Look

Abstract

Citizenship norms, digital media use and political participation in Israel: An investigation of (counter-)stratificational effects in a deeply divided society

This paper investigates the relationship between citizenship norms, digital media use, and political behavior in a "deeply divided society" context. Contemporary research on these topics is motivated by a theory that the recent stagnation and even decline in electoral-oriented participation (e.g. voting) and the simultaneous rise in political participation beyond the electoral arena (e.g. online activism) can be explained by the increased prevalence of pro-democratic citizenship norms and digital media usage.
Drawing on a two-wave repeated panel (fielded in 2018 and 2019) of a nationally representative study in Israel, the research design of this paper includes two main innovations. First, along with measurement of citizenship norms and political participation, the survey incorporates items measuring digital media usage. Second, the research design takes advantage of key characteristics of Israel as a test case. Of particular interest is the fact that Israel has been characterized as a “hyper-connected” digital media environment, but little empirical attention has been paid in this field of research to the impact of socio-economic inequalities in a deeply divided society, particularly in the relationship between Jewish citizens and Arab/Palestinian citizens. At a time when many democracies are facing severe challenges due to democratic disengagement and social integration, the findings shed new light on whether the encouraging findings of counter-stratificational effects of digital media on participatory inequalities in advanced democracies (e.g., Xenos, Vromen & Loader 2014) are also evident in a divided society context.

Author

• Jennifer Oser, Ben-Gurion University