Young Immigrants’ Political Participation on the Internet in Germany : Comparing German-East-Europeans and German-Turks

YOUNG IMMIGRANTS’ POLITICAL PARTICIPATION ON THE INTERNET

IN GERMANY : COMPARING GERMAN-EAST-

EUROPEANS AND GERMAN-TURKS

Viktoria Spaiser

International Joint Workshop on Immigrant Inclusion by E-Participation, Helsinki

Outline 1. Introduction 2. Theory3. Methods and Data4. Results

4.1. Political Online Participation – Excerpt 4.2. Online and Offline Political Participation 4.3. Political Online Participation & Gender4.4. Political Online Participation & Education 4.5. Model for young people from East-Europe4.6. Model for young people from Turkey

5. Conclusions

Introduction

• digital divide vs. digital empowerment of

immigrant groups

• (digital) political integration of immigrants

• Immigrants’ agendas in the political long tail?

• Do only immigrant elites participate online?

TheoryPolitical participation on the Internet:

1. Information activities online: e.g. reading online

news

2. Communication activities online: e.g. political

online-debates, writing political blogs, networking,

coordinating political activities, …

3. Participation activities online: e.g. protest email

campaigns, online petitions, digital civil

disobedience,…

Theoretical Background Theory-synthesis of rational-choice and resource

models to explain political online participation →

Factors of influence: • Political discontentment and/or grievance (relative

deprivation, discrimination experience) • Political efficacy• Social incentives / social capital: young people’s

socio-political milieu • Education • Internet skills

Data & Methodology• Survey-Data , N= 2,082 (ages of 14 to 26), German

respondent (n=771) left out for this analysis

• Survey in school classes, including all types of

German schools

• Survey from November 2009 – March 2010 in four

German cities Bielefeld, Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt

→ clustered sample

Data & Methodology

Two groups, based on origin

1. Young East-Europeans, mainly from Poland

and former Soviet Union, n=221

2. Young people with Turkish origins, n=497

Data & MethodologyStatistical Methodology:• Descriptive statistics (means, frequencies)• Variance-Analyses (Eta)• Structural Equation Models (SEM)• Missing Data handled with Full Information

Maximum Likelihood

Results: Political Online Participation

Immi-grants

East-Europe

Turkey

online news

at least rarely

92% 92.8% 92.5%

online debates

at least once

37.9% 32% 42.3%

online content

at least once

21% 18.4% 23.4%

coordina-ting action

at least infrequently

68% 56.4% 74.3%

protest email

at least once

20.3% 17.8% 20.8%

On-/Offline Participation

On-/Offline Participation

Which political issues are related to intense

political Internet usage?• Internet freedom/preventing Internet censorship• Data security/ (digital) civil rights• Fundamental political changes in Germany• Anti-racism/ anti-fascism • Human rights• Supporting marginalized groups • Intercultural dialogue (German-Turks)

Gender

Significance of gender differences: Eta Immigrants: 0.130**; Eta Turkey: 0.133*; Eta East-Europe: n.s. **: p < 0.01 (ANOVA) *: p < 0.05 (ANOVA)

Education

Socioeconomic Status

Significance of socio-economic status: all Etas are n.s.

apart from Eta East-Europe: 0.173* with p < 0.05

Significance of socio-economic status: all Etas are n.s. apart from Eta East-Europe: 0.173* with p < 0.05

Model: German-East-Europeans

Model: German-Turks

Some additional notes• Surprising that German-Turks are more active

politically on the Internet than German-East-

Europeans, because– On average lower Internet skills: Tur.: M=1.38, SD=0.67

vs. East: M=1.47, SD=0.70– Related to lower socioeconomic status: Tur.: M=46.67,

SD=13.12 vs. East: M=56.90, SD=13.74– But German-Turks included in rather politized milieus:

Tur.: M=1.70, SD=0.93 vs. East: M=1.21, SD=0.71– Therefore higher level of political efficacy: Tur.: M=1.44,

SD=0.76 vs. East: M=1.21, SD=0.80– Finally, stronger incentives

Conclusions• Immigrants use the Internet for political purposes to raise

their voice, therefore, e-Participation is a chance• However, different immigrant groups have different

incentives, backgrounds, resources and therefore e-

participation needs• Bottom-up approach: immigrant communities build cyber-

spaces for participation themselves. Authorities, politicians

etc. should go to this spaces and listen to the voices; more

important than producing new spaces for immigrants from

above• Still (digital) divides: e.g. women, Internet skills (necessary to

find ways to reduce Internet skills discrepancies) to avoid an

establishment of second-level digital (democratic) divide