Who's Afraid of Clicktivism? Exploring Citizens' Use of Social Media and Political Participation in the Czech Republic
Abstract
This chapter aims to investigate the connection between online political expression and offline political and civic engagement in the context of the 2013 Czech Parliamentary elections. It is informed by the debates surrounding the role of social network sites in facilitating new forms of civic engagement and political participation.
Particularly, we reflect upon the concepts of clicktivism or slacktivism which claim that online activism is often not followed or complemented by offline forms of participation and that there is no link between digital engagement and citizens' real-life actions. This study attempts to test this thesis, using data from a representative survey of the Czech adult population, distributed directly following the 2013 elections.
The results suggest that the hypothesis about "clicktivism" is all but unfounded in the context of the Czech social network users, as those politically active online during the campaign are more likely to vote and engage more often in other traditional participatory activities as well. The analysis also takes into account other factors such as political interest and political efficacy, with the ambition to provide a more detailed understanding of online political engagement and its relation to offline activities.