重访数字民主:互联网介入与网络政治参与——基于列举实验的发现

The Era of Digital Democracy? Internet Involvement and Online Political Participation: Evidence from a List Experiment

进入互联网时代,互联网普及对国家治理带来了革命性影响。学术界对此存在冲突性观点:乐观者认为互联网通过刺激网络行动主义和强化网络社会链接促进政治参与,而悲观者认为互联网导致网民日益区隔,网络去政治化削弱了政治参与。现有解释忽视了互联网介入方式在互联网应用与网络政治参与之间的联系机制,本文利用对中国网民的调查实验从个体层面检验了互联网介入对网络政治参与的影响。列举实验有效削减了政治参与测量的社会意愿偏差,凸显出中国网民比较活跃的政治参与状况。统计分析显示,互联网介入方式是网络政治参与的关键变量,集体性介入显著促进网络政治参与,而个体性介入则有负影响或无影响。简言之,互联网普及并不会自动带来网络民主,只有集体性介入才可通过强化网络社会联系和信息扩散激发网络参与。

Since the coming of the Internet Era,the popularization of internet has brought about a revolutionary impact on national governance. There are competing views on the role of internet in governance among scholars: the optimists believe that internet has strengthened the political participation by stimulating internet activism and constructing the network of social links,while pessimists hold that internet weakened the political participation through growing segment of internet users and depoliticization of internet. Previous studies usually underestimate the roles of internet involvement to link internet use and online participation theoretically. Based on a survey experiment to Chinese internet users,we examine the effect of internet involvement in online participation on the individual level. The list experiment displays the effective capacity to reduce social desirability bias of measuring online participation. As a result,Chinese citizens are relatively active online. Econometric analysis shows that internet involvement is the key variable to activate online participation. Collective involvement significantly promotes online participation while individual involvement shows negative or no influence. In sum,the popularization of internet will not automatically bring digital democracy,collective involvement,rather than individual involvement,will stimulate online participation by strengthening the network of social links and the diffusion of online information.