Internet Spurs Civic Activism, Researcher Finds
CET Mon Oct 11 2004 

Civic activists who use the Internet become even more active in their community. That’s one finding of a study coauthored by Dr. Debbie Denise Reese, an educational researcher at the NASA-sponsored Classroom of the Future.

The finding is important because it shows that people use the Internet to make a difference in their communities. Reese notes that the ramification for education is that people can use the Internet to have a positive effect on their school systems.

The study, Participating in a Society: The Case of Networked Communities, will be published in forthcoming issue of Interacting with Computers, the journal of the British Human Computer Interaction group, the largest such organization in Europe. 

Coauthors with Reese on the study are Dr. Andrea Kavanaugh (lead author) and Dr. Than T. Zin of Virginia Tech University, and Drs. John M. Carroll and Mary Beth Rosson of Penn State University.

The researchers created an empirical model from two rounds of data—an exploratory analysis and a second round a year later to confirm the initial findings. The researchers then used that data to draw conclusions about how people’s level of education and extrovert characteristics influenced people’s community activism and the role of the Internet in that activism. People who were more informed and educated were more active in their community and used the Internet to conduct civic business. The more extroverted and educated people also believed more that they could have an effect on how things operate in their community.

These findings support the theory of Stanford scholar Dr. Albert Bandura, who has predicted that the Internet will empower people to make a difference in their community.

November 10, 2004