Many previous studies concerning the relationship between the Internet and political participation have shown quite contradictory results because many of them assumed that political participation over the Internet reflects political participation in real life. They tended to apply measurements of offline political participation into those of online political situations without validating accurate methods for the Internet. Also, they tended to treat online political participation as mediated variables to explicate offline political participation rather than as independent variables relatively free from offline political participation. Bearing in mind the limitations of previous studies, this study mainly focuses on understanding online political participation in that online political participation itself plays a specific role in overall political participation including offline political participation. Therefore, the scope of the study is confined to political participation over the Internet.
In addition, the study reexamines measurements and procedures used in existing studies regarding political participation over the Internet. Existing studies of online political participation tended to just use traditional factors measuring political participation in real life. Therefore, this study first examines whether or not those traditional factors have the same influence on online political participation. This study also intends to reveal why they are not useful in online political environment. In this sense, the study aims at developing accurate and valid measurements and procedures for online political participation in case they do not provide meaningful explanations.
In politics, sociology, and communication studies, it is believed that social capital accrued through the Internet can exert power over the real life in the same way as social capital accumulated in real life can This study investigates whether or not online social capital encourages online political participation, acting as a catalyst for political participation just as social capital in real life does. The study, therefore, examines whether or not variables of network, trust, and norm constituting online social capital provide meaningful measurements to explain online political participation. The study takes into account not only multi-dimensions of the concept of social capital and difficulties of the measurements of the concept but also difference between offline and online political participations, raising a question of applying these considerations simply to online political environment.
The concept of “online political capital” is derived from political capital in order to complement the concept of social capital related to political participation. Online political capital is the concept of reorganizing political capital as subordinate variables and thus can be formed and accumulated on the Internet, The online political capital is evaluated on the basis of whether or not it provides an effective means to explain online political participation.
Traditional factors concerning political participation, socioeconomic status (sex, age, income, and education level) and politico-psychological matters (political awareness, political knowledge, political credibility, and political efficiency), have little influence on online political participation. In the case of socioeconomic status, younger people are more likely to participate in cognitive political participation (β=.122, p<.001), and people with low income are more likely to perform practical political participation (β=.078, p<.05) as shown in low regression coefficient. In the case of politico-psychological matters, all factors except political credibility have significant relationships with political participation. Political knowledge has the most influence on cognitive political participation (β=.107, p<.01) followed by political efficiency (β=.103, p<.01) and political awareness (β=.093, p<.05). In other words, people with more political awareness, political knowledge, and political efficiency are more likely to participate in cognitive political participation on the Internet, but the relationships are less clear than those in real life. Most of all, politico-psychological matters have no influence on online political participation at all. There appears to be considerable contextual and characteristic difference between offline and online political participations.
The results suggest that traditional matters concerning political participation have limitations to explain online political participation. Especially, in politico-psychological cases, they are somewhat useful to explain cognitive political participation but meaningless to explain highly-involved practical political participation on the Internet. In other words, politico-psychological matters provide much more useful explanation for cognitive political participation than for practical political participation. Therefore, traditional politico-psychological factors are found to be inadequate to explain online political participation.
Socioeconomic factors and politico-psychological factors along with the amount of news consumption are analyzed for extrapolating political participation on the Internet. Still, any of them do not have significant relationships with both cognitive and practical online political participation. Specifically, it is surprising that the amount of hours of news spent on conventional media such as TV and newspaper, does not affect online political participation. The findings imply that people with high involvement in online political activities have made a big difference of the ways to acquire political information as compared to those of previous studies. Media convergence has integrated attributes of traditional media into those of new media. The converged attributes of the Internet allows the Internet to function not only as a major channel for distribution and consumption of political information but also as an essential political sphere in which actual political activities and decisions are made. That is why the Internet attracts researchers’ attention as an alternative medium over traditional media.
The relationship between online social capital and political participation on the Internet is as follows. Among the size of network, trust and norms constituting online social capital, only norms (β=.087, p<.01) have an influence on cognitive online political participation. The size of network (β=.110, p<.01) and norms (β=-.219, p<.001) also affect practical online political participation.
It is interesting that norms regulated on the Internet have a less influence on cognitive political participation and a more negative influence on practical political participation. In real life, norms contribute to achieving mutual benefits among the members in a society through reciprocal cooperation. In this way, norms play an important role of resolving problems in question. Yet, the more or stronger regulated online norms, the less the political expressions and practices are made. There are a couple of examples concerning regulations on the Internet, “the limited self-confirmation system” requiring users’ real identifications when they post on bulletin boards of specific web sites, and “the real-name system” requiring users’ real identifications whenever they participate in activities on the Internet. Especially, the online real-name system is considered one of the most critical threats in repressing freedom of speech based on anonymity which is still controversial. Hence, the fewer the online regulations are made, the more active the participation in civil appeals or behavioral political activities different from those in real life are taken.
However, there are hardly any meaningful relationships among the size of network, online trust, and online norms constituting online social capital. Also, considering that norms have negative relationship with online political participation it is inappropriate to consider all three concepts of network size, trust and norm as the construct of “online social capital.” The findings indicate that jumping to conclusion that the higher online social capital, the active political participation on the Internet may be problematic to reveal the correlation. Stated differently, low internal validity among variables means the necessity to reorganize variables representing the concept of online social capital in relation to political participation. In the other hands, conventional measurements of social capital are not necessarily valid for measuring the construct of online social capital.
When examining the relationship between online political capital and political participation on the Internet, both cognitive and practical political participation are affected by awareness of the Internet as a political medium and as a politically efficient medium, and technological means being allowed to express political opinions. Most of all, awareness of the Internet as a political medium (β=.359, p<.001), and as a politically efficient medium (β=.259, p<.001) relatively affect practical political participation on the Internet. And political network accessibility (β=.398, p<.001) and technological means (β=.349, p<.001) also have a significant influence on practical political participation on the Internet.
The results imply that for cognitive political participation, it is more critical for participants to recognize the Internet as a political medium over which the participants gather political information and consider online political participation to be efficient. On the other hand, for practical political participation, accessibility to political web sites and possession of technological means are more important for encouraging the participants to involve in political issues not for deepening the participants’ perception toward political participation.
In conclusion, it is essential to develop and conduct a new methodology to examine online political participation rather than to use conventional methodology of political capital. These new measurements of online political capital should necessarily reflect the characteristics of the Internet and provide researchers with accurate and meaningful instruments to properly measure online political participation.

본 연구는 인터넷과 정치참여와의 관계를 규명하고자 한 기존의 연구결과들이 상충되거나 일관성을 보이지 않는 점에 주목하고, 이러한 문제에 접근하기 위해 인터넷에서의 정치참여를 현실세계의 정치참여를 설명하는 매개변인으로 보기 이전에 인터넷 상에서 이루어지는 정치참여 그 자체를 보다 명확히 규명할 필요성을 제기하였다. 즉, 인터넷 상에서 이루어지는 정치참여가 명확히 규명된 이후에야 인터넷과 정치참여 전반을 제대로 설명할 수 있기 때문이다. 따라서 본 논문은 인터넷 상에서 이루어지는 정치참여로 연구범위를 한정하였다.
그리고 인터넷 정치참여를 설명하는 기존 연구들에서 사용된 변수들에 대한 재검토가 필요하다는 문제를 제기하였다. 즉, 오프라인에서의 정치참여와 인터넷 상에서의 정치참여 간의 상이한 정치참여의 맥락과 특성을 차별화하여 접근하지 못하고, 오프라인 정치참여에 투입된 전통적인 변수를 인터넷 정치참여에도 그대로 적용하였다는 것이다. 따라서 본 논문에서는 전통적 정치참여 변수들이 인터넷 정치참여에도 적절한 설명력을 갖는지를, 그리고 만약 그렇지 않다면 왜 그러한지를 검토하는 동시에 인터넷 정치참여의 특성이 반영될 수 있는 변수의 개발을 시도하였다.
그러한 측면에서 최근 정치학, 사회학, 언론학 등에서 각광받고 있는 사회자본이 현실세계에서처럼 온라인 상에서도 축적되고 그 영향력을 발휘할 수 있다는 이론적 논의와 검토를 통해 현실정치참여에서와 같이 온라인 사회자본이 인터넷 정치참여를 촉진시킬 것이라는 주장에 대한 검증을 실시하였다. 즉, 본 연구에서는 온라인 사회자본의 각 구성개념인 네트워크, 신뢰, 규범이 인터넷 정치참여를 설명하는 유효한 변수인지를 검토하였다.
한편, 사회자본 개념의 복잡성과 측정의 어려움, 그리고 오프라인 정치참여와의 상이한 정치참여의 특성이 고려되지 않고 인터넷 정치참여를 규명하는데 적용될 수 있는가에 대한 문제를 제기하였다. 그리하여 정치참여와 관련한 사회자본의 문제를 보완하기 위해 제기된 정치자본의 개념을 인터넷에서 형성되고 축적될 수 있는 형태로 하위 구성 개념을 재구성하여 ‘온라인 정치자본’으로 명명하고, 사회자본보다 유효하게 인터넷 정치참여를 설명하는지를 분석하였다.
분석결과, 현실정치참여를 설명하는 기존의 전통적 정치심리변수와 미디어 이용변수 그리고 사회자본 변수를 인터넷에 적용한 온라인 사회자본변수는 인터넷 정치참여와 관련하여 제한적인 효과를 가지는 것으로 나타난 반면, 사회자본의 개념적 한계와 인터넷 매체의 특성을 반영하여 새롭게 구성한 온라인 정치자본 변수는 상대적으로 높은 영향력을 미치는 것으로 나타나 인터넷 정치참여를 설명하는 유효한 변수로 검증되었다.