The Impact of Internet on the Citizen's Civil Engagement

Civil engagement is one of the foundational requirements of democracy and citizenship. Since the last quarter of the 20th century, we have been facing a phenomenon called “Information Explosion and Planet Awareness”. Internet, on the one hand, has expanded our democratic knowledge and view, and on the other hand, it has brought a new political participation online. Discussing findings of some of the most important qualitative studies carried out in this field, the present article highlights the theory that internet has had a relatively good influence on adolescents and educated adults’ political engagement in these two ways: online and non-online. Based on these studies, the author has offered a contextual model for internet effect on political participation.