18대 총선과 인터넷 = 정치참여에 미친 영향과 참여 네티즌 특성 분석

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study analyzes relationship between ‘the Internet' and ‘political participation,' using online survey data of the 18th National Assembly Election in South Korea. This study divided political participation into three aspects of information acquisition, electoral concern and voting participation, while the previous studies had usually focused on only voting participation. This study finds that online activity had meaningful effects on the voters' political participation. Though TV(36.0%) was a leading electoral information source, the internet(18.6%) surpassed newspaper(9.8%). Two level regression analysis proved that voters' online activities had positive influence on both electoral concern and voting participation. After analyzing socioeconomic variables influencing online activities, it was found that age and sex had meaningful impact on voters' online political activities, while income and education did not. Voters in their 50s and over 60s committed more online political activities compared to 20s and 30s. This result is quiet contrary to the online activities in 2002 presidential election, when online space was dominated by young and progressive voters.