网络时代的知识生产与政治参与

Does Online Knowledge Production Contribute to Offline Political Participation

Web 2.0的兴起,赋予网民多种形式参与政治知识建构的机会。知识生产的不平等开始取代知识获取的不平等,成为数字化时代研究社会不平等的关键面向。本文对美国社会的网络知识生产进行了实证探讨。通过对一份全国性电话调查数据的分析,研究发现受教育程度高的个体倾向于以文字的形式书写政治博客,而受教育程度低的和年轻个体更热衷于以图片和视频的形式发布博客。同时,年轻用户比老年用户更喜欢就政治博客发表评论。本研究发现,在所有形式的知识生产中,只有评论和图片与政治参与相关。这意味着新媒体技术具有某种强化边缘、赋权弱势的民主潜力。至于政治参与,研究结果可谓喜忧参半。这表明,虽然社会经济地位较高者仍然在网上保持一定优势,社会经济地位较低者也能够从网络的互动和融合属性中获得一定的益处。因此,网络知识生产一方面折射出美国真实社会的结构性不平等,另一方面也为重构政治传播的格局和强化公共领域的参与和互动元素创造了一些新的机会。

The rise of Web 2.0empowers average Web users with an unprecedented privilege of producing political knowledge in various forms.The problem of unequal knowledge production,instead of knowledge acquisition,becomes a new critical indicator of the social inequalities in the digital era.This study explores the demographic antecedents and political consequences of Americans'online political knowledge production.Data from a national telephone survey were analyzed.The results show that higher educated users are more active in writing political blogs,whereas lower educated and young individuals are more active in posting political pictures and videos.In addition,the youth produce more political comments than their older counterparts.Because only comments and pictures are associated with political participation,these findings suggest an exciting potential of new media technology to engage the disengaged and empower the powerless.Nevertheless,the mixed findings regarding the participation gaps between high and low education groups indicate that while high socio-economic status individuals maintain some advantages online,lower status segments do reap certain benefits from the interactive and convergent nature of the Internet.In conclusion,online knowledge production replicates some of the structural inequalities offline,yet presents new opportunities to unbound political communication and to strengthen the participatory and interactive elements of the public sphere.