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Wired Voters: The Effects of Internet Use on Voters' Electoral Uncertainty

par Sudulich, Maria Laura ;Wall, Matthew;Baccini, Leonardo
Référence British journal of political science, 45, 4, page (853-881)
Publication Publié, 2014-02

Article révisé par les pairs

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Résumé :

This article examines whether voters' use of the internet as a source of political news affects the extent to which they are certain of their vote choice in national-level elections. It employs data pertaining to the 2011 general election in Ireland, linking geographical information on broadband coverage with individual-level public opinion data from the 2011 Irish National Election Study. The resultant dataset allows the adoption of a quasi-experimental approach in our examination of the effects of online political newsgathering on voters' electoral uncertainty. Implementing instrumental variables, the study finds consistent evidence of a causal relationship between the use of the internet as a source of political information and increased levels of political uncertainty among voters, ceteris paribus. These findings are robust to a range of model specifications and alternative operationalizations of dependent and independent variables.