Political use of the Internet in semi-democratic regimes:
the case of Ethiopia
Emnet Assefa Degafe - 10831649
Master's Thesis
Erasmus Mundus Master's in Journalism, Globalization and
the Role of the Media
Graduate School of Communication- University of Amsterdam
Thesis supervisor: Penny Sheets (Phd)
2 Abstract
Despite the optimism with the democratization effect of the Internet, the political use of the Internet among citizens in non-democratic countries remains limited. In these countries where the democratization potential of the Internet can be explored, little is known about its political use of the Internet in these societies. This study focusing on informational and interactive utilities of the Internet, investigated the extent of political Internet use among citizens in a semi-Authoritarian regime. Taking Ethiopia as a case for reasons of its limited Internet access and democracy, It explored to what extent political Internet use is motivated by political information and interactive needs. Furthermore, it examined the association between citizen's political attitudes and their political Internet use. In doing so, this study found that (a) political information Internet use, but not interactive use is motivated by citizens' political Internet use motives, (b) political attitudes such as political participation predict online political
interactions, ( c) Ethiopians who use Internet for political purposes are less likely to participate in voting.
3 Introduction
In April 2014, the Ethiopian government arrested nine young journalists and bloggers, accusing them of inciting violence using social media to destabilize the peace in the country (Foltyn, 2015; Greenslade, 2014). A few months after the arrest, the journalists and bloggers were charged with terrorism and are still waiting for their verdicts. Six of the arrested
bloggers were members of the bloggers’ collective ‘Zone 9', who call themselves ‘activists of freedom of expression and human rights’, while the rest are journalists who were accused of working with the bloggers (Foltyn, 2015). The bloggers started blogging in 2011 on issues of freedom of expression, freedom of press and the freedom to hold public gatherings and to protest, asking the Ethiopian government to respect the country’s constitution that grants all these rights. In the years before their arrest, the bloggers were read by an audience from within the country and abroad. The news of their arrest and the court hearings did not get attention from the state media, which is the main source of information for many Ethiopians. The case was different for the online community: the news of their arrest and frequent court hearings were constantly reported to the online community by their followers and by social media users, complementing the efforts of human rights campaigners who are demanding the release of the bloggers (see e.g. Biddle, 2014; Fasiledes, 2014). In these campaigns, the bloggers are constantly praised for being brave in raising fundamental questions and trying to bring many Ethiopians to the virtual public space where they could discuss socio-political issues of the country.
Such stories remind us that although there has been plenty of optimism about the democratizing power of the internet (e.g. Ferdinand, 2000; MacKuen, Wolak, Keele, & Marcus, 2010; Papacharissi, 2008), the political realities facing internet activists make things much more complicated on the ground. While the Internet can play an important role in building democracy in the developing and non-democratic world (Stoycheff & Nisbet, 2014),
4 access and government control remain the two main challenges. As free press and the space for public discussion is limited in most of these countries, the Internet serves as an alternative source of political information and a platform for citizens' interaction (see e.g. Alagappa, 2004; Megenta, 2010). With the free movement of information on the Internet, citizens could have access to opposing views and opinions; with tools like blogging, social media or online discussion forums citizens could share their views on social, economic and political issues. These informational and interactive possibilities also enable communities, civil societies and activists to come together for collective action, which non-democratic regimes see as a threat for the existence (Milner, 2006). As a result of this, these regimes tend to have the disposition to supress the adoption of the technology in most of these countries (Milner, 2006) or shape policies and legislations of its use in a way that serves the interest of the regime (Kalathil & Boas, 2007).
The situation in Ethiopia is no different from this. Limited Internet access, heavy Internet censorship and surveillance by the government as well as the detainment of bloggers and journalists are frequent incidents in Ethiopia (Gagliardone, 2014; Megenta, 2010). Over the past few years, Ethiopia has seen the worst form of government crackdown on
independent media, which made any kind of political discussion, public debate and discussion difficult both for the media and the public (Gagliardone, 2014; Reporters Without Boarders, 2014). Despite these constraints, a small section of the society still uses the Internet for various purposes including politics (Megenta, 2010). What we do not know much about is what sorts of motives drive these Internet users, nor what sorts of specific political activities they do online—but given the challenges of getting online in Ethiopia, with high costs and low connectivity, it is important to learn more about these Internet use motivations. The goal of this study, therefore, is threefold: first, to examine the extent to which the Internet is used as source of political information and an interactive platform for Ethiopians; second, to
5 examine such users’ motives for using the Internet for political purposes, and third, to have a better understanding of the relationship between users’ motives, Internet use, and their political attitudes more generally. With these goals in mind, the central research question explored in this study is to what extent is Internet used for political purposes among
Ethiopians while also exploring its associations with different political attitudes. Studying this specific group of active Internet users in such a constrained information environment can give us valuable insight into Internet's potential in promoting democracy in non-democratic
countries where its political use is greatly desired. Furthermore, given the limited knowledge of the political utility of the Internet in Ethiopia at individual level, this study aims to
contribute to the understanding of the contribution of Internet has in fostering democracy.
The access divide
The digital divide approach is a frequently used theory in explaining the disparities related to digital technology at different levels (Milner, 2006; Thatcher & Ndabeni, 2011). Scholars like Norris (2001) see the digital divide from three perspectives; the global,
inequality in technology between the developed and developing world; the social, the access gap between the information rich and information poor in every country; and the democratic divide, the divide between countries using information technology to enhance public life and those not. The global divide is characterized as lack of formal access, poor telecommunication infrastructures, low economic capacity, knowledge and skill in developing countries while it is the opposite in the developed world (Chinn & Fairlie, 2006). "Formal access" is also referred as physical availability and effective access of the technology. The former refers to "affordable connectivity" while the latter is "diffusion of skills people need to benefit from the technology” (DiMaggio et al., 2001, p.313). The poor telecommunication infrastructures in most developing countries make the costs of Internet connectivity very high for citizens to use the Internet. According to the International Telecommunication Union, in Africa, "broadband
6 Internet access in particular remains prohibitively high and costs on average almost three times the monthly average per capita income" (ITU, 2011).
Moreover, the availability of infrastructure one way or the other is associated with countries’ economic capacities while the type of government in power plays another crucial role. This is what (Norris, 2001) refers as democratic division; democratic countries tend to adopt technologies like the Internet more than those that are not democratic (Milner, 2006), as democratic countries see it as an advantage to foster growth and development of democratic practices while nondemocratic regimes see it as a threat for their power and thus are
restrictive of its diffusion. According to Milner (2006), the Internet threatens non-democratic regimes for three reasons. (1)" It promotes uncensored access to information (2) it enables wide sharing of information and (3) its capacity to overcome collective goods to solve problems, thus enhancing the public’s ability to organize against a regime" (p. 184). These informational and interactive possibilities of the Internet make these governments critical of its use mainly political use.
Contrary to this, in societies where both Internet and democracy are well developed, Internet serves as a tool to strengthen the relationship between governments and citizens or at least has the potential to do so (Norris, 2001). The Internet is largely utilized by governments to provide service for their citizens and in doing so they ensure equal access of government services to all citizens; it is also its place for citizens to have access to unrestricted and uncensored information (Kaye & Johnson, 2002); it also promotes citizens' discussion and deliberation on issues that affect them; it serves as a platform for civil societies, activist groups to mobilize the public in issues that demand government attention (Gimmler, 2001). In this case Internet assists the civic engagement of citizens in the political system as citizens use it to be informed, discuss and take collective action on political, economic and social issues that affect their lives.
7 Knowing this potential, it is important for Internet researchers to examine
non-democratic contexts in particular, in order to better understand the way that the Internet is used there, even if in limited amounts and constrained environments. That is, keeping in mind that the Internet does not play such a pivotal role in non-democratic countries such as
Ethiopia, Ethiopians still use the Internet for information and a space for political, economic and social discussions even if their number is next to none. It is however interesting to empirically learn the extent to which Internet users in Ethiopia use the Internet for political purposes both as source of information and as a space for public discussion. Here, it is also important to question their motives of using Internet for these purposes amid accessibility and high Internet cost challenges. Plenty of research has examined the motivations and uses of the Internet in democratic societies; a review of that literature now will help set up the key
questions and hypotheses for this study’s examination of the Ethiopian context. Uses and Gratifications of Internet use
Scholars studying relationship between media and their audience largely use the uses and gratifications theory as it outlines the audiences' motivation for using kinds of media and media messages (see. e.g. Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1973; Kaye & Johnson, 2002;
Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000; Weaver Lariscy, Tinkham, & Sweetser, 2011). This theory is also used to study "the gratifications that attract and hold audience to the kind of media and the types of content that satisfy their social and psychological needs”(Ruggiero, 2000, p. 3). Thus, personal needs can motivate people to consume a certain kind of media and media messages (Papacharissi, 2014). So, audiences' choice of media is targeted by the attainment of their need-driven goals (Littlejohn & Foss, 2010). These needs are usually influenced by societal and social structures, where “societal structures includes political, cultural, economic, social and media systems while social structure focuses on social background such as life position, psychological characteristics that affects their communication needs” (R. B. Rubin
8 & Rubin, 1992, p. 306). Put simply, our choice of media can be motivated by our desire to fulfil our needs.
In use and gratification studies, motives and needs that are reason for media use are studied as indicators for media related behaviours (Papacharissi, 2014). Following this, some research findings suggest surveillance or the need to know what is happening in one's social environment (Kaye & Johnson, 2002), entertainment , social interaction needs and deliberate search for information are reasons for using media in general (Katz et al., 1973). Looking at specific media, TV viewing is liked with surveillance and entertainment needs (Alan M Rubin, 1983); information and interaction needs motivate radio listening (Towers, 1985) while Internet use is motivated by surveillance, commercial transaction or buying and selling things, information and social interaction needs (Kaye & Johnson, 2002; Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000; van Deursen & van Dijk, 2014). Internet's ability of making a vast amount of information available makes it a target for those who have information and surveillance needs (Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000). And its ability to connect people with each other makes it a suitable choice for those who have a hard time having face to face communication with other people (Kaye & Johnson, 2002). Therefore, people who search for political information and are keen to know what is happening in the political environment find Internet a resourceful media to satisfy their needs, and those who desire to share their views and discuss about politics find Internet utilities such as social media, blogging and forum discussions tools fulfilling.
Research by Kaye & Johnson (2002) and Lariscy et al.( 2011) suggest a similar thing, political Internet use is motivated by surveillance, social interaction, entertainment and election time guidance needs. Furthermore, individual's Internet use motivations are affected by individuals' political attitudes such as one's personal believe on his/her capacity to
9 have surveillance needs seek political information mostly during times of election to keep themselves informed about current election happenings such as candidate information,
candidates’ programs and strategies and general information related to the election (Lariscy et al., 2011). Furthermore, it is suggested that different Internet functions gratify different needs; For instance, chat rooms and other interactive functions gratify social interaction needs; information seeking need is associated with web surfing; online publications such as digital newspapers that are source of news fulfil surveillance needs (Kaye & Johnson, 2002).
In summary, Internet use is largely motivated by the fulfilment of interactive and informational needs (A M Rubin, 1994) mainly due to its capacity to facilitate interaction and information related activities. In the Ethiopian case, it is interesting to see to what extent political information needs motivate Internet users to go online in search of political
information overcoming challenges related with access and high connectivity costs. Based on the literature reviewed above, this study makes its first hypothesis as follow:
H1: political information Internet use is associated with political Internet use motives.
Political Internet use and Political efficacy
Beyond motives themselves, research suggests an association between numerous political attitudes and political Internet use (Kaye & Johnson, 2002; Lariscy et al., 2011). Political efficacy, political interest/knowledge, trust in government and political alienation are some of the political attitudes that are frequently studied in relation to the political Internet use. Political efficacy, one's feeling of one's "own political action can have an impact on the political system and that individual citizens can play a part in bringing about this change” (Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960, p. 187), is a key predictor for healthy democracy where citizens’ civil engagement and political participation are assured (Demertzis, Milioni, & Gialamas, 2013). It is also associated with political media use in general and Internet use in particular (Bandura, 1977; Kaye & Johnson, 2002). It is also seen
10 from two perspectives; (1) internal efficacy, individual’s belief on one’s capacity to bring political change (Balch, 1974; Finkel, 1985; Hayes & Bean, 1993) and (2) external efficacy, citizen’s belief about how responsive government authorities are to the demands of their citizens (Balch, 1974; Craig, Niemi, & Silver, 1990; Finkel, 1985).
Related to Internet use, research found that people with higher internal efficacy use the Internet for political purposes. (Kaye & Johnson, 2002), for example, studied how political self-efficacy predicts the motivation to use the Internet. Their findings suggest that people who have a high level of efficacy are motivated to know what is happening in the political environment and thus "search for political information that is not available in the mainstream media" (p. 64). Furthermore, interactive web users were found to have a higher level of political efficacy than those who are non-interactive web users (Williams & Tedesco, 2006). Similarly, (Lee, 2006)'s study suggests that self-efficacy predicts the informational and interactive utility of the Internet among college students, indicating that those who use Internet for both informational and interactive purposes have high political self-efficacy. Thus, users' political efficacy plays an important role in their political use of the Internet and the level of their efficacy predicts how they use Internet for political purposes, so it is
interesting to know the interplay between users' political efficacy and their political Internet use in the Ethiopian case. In line with the findings of the studies reviewed above, in the second hypothesis I expect to see an association between political efficacy interest in politics
and political Internet use.
Furthermore, Papacharissi & Rubin (2000)'s findings suggest that Internet is also used as an “alternative for those who do not find other channels available or rewarding” ( p. 191). It also serves information seeking needs for those who think political information on
traditional media is censored by gatekeepers. At the same time, these people are reported of having high levels of political efficacy (Kaye & Johnson, 2002). Given the political and
11 media situation in Ethiopia, one would be interested to know if Internet serves as an
alternative source of information for the people. Additionally, it is also interesting to know if there is an association between political efficacy and alternative political use of Internet, which bringing us to a better understanding of the political behaviour of Ethiopia political Internet users. Referring findings of (Kaye & Johnson, 2002), in my third hypothesis I expect to find high level of political efficacy among those who use Internet as an alternative source
of information.
Extending to this thought, research suggests that political Internet use is also linked with other political attitudes like interest in politics, trust in government and closeness to a political party, likelihood of voting or political participation. Kaye and Johnson (2002)'s study that largely studied the effect of political attitudes on political Internet use indicates that the effect interlinked, i.e. people who are interested in politics are also involved in the political process and thus, are keen in searching for political information on the Internet mainly to be informed while conversing with their social circles (Kaye & Johnson, 2002). However, scholarship in the causal relationship between political use of the Internet and political attitude is divided. Some suggest that “political Internet use promotes political interest and feelings of trust and efficacy, and makes individuals more likely to participate in campaigns and politics” (Wang, 2007, p. 381), while others suggest "political attitudes are formed long before the advent of the Internet" thus political attitudes drive political Internet use (Kaye & Johnson, 2002, p. 67). In light of these differences and due to research methods this study uses, it only explores the general association between political attitudes and political Internet use. Furthermore, it investigates which political attitude predicts political Internet use best. In the Ethiopian case, given the limited space for political freedom, the choice of using Internet for politics can be predicted by societal or social factors including attitude towards the political system, psychological reasons such as the need for self- expression as well as
12 individuals' political attitudes and perception of the political system. In light of this, the last question this study aims to answer is do political attitudes predict political Internet use. Prior to going to hypothesis testing, it is important to give a brief insight to the Internet access and democratic imitations in the Ethiopian case, which has lightly been discussed throughout the above sections.
Internet use: the Ethiopian case
Ethiopia is one of the countries in Africa that is in its early stages of democracy. Following the deteriorating human right and governance conditions, many argue that the country has already turned into an authoritarian state while others suggest it is a 'semi-authoritarian'. "Semi-authoritarian" is a term given for "regimes that are neither authoritarian nor democratic, but they display the characteristics of both" (Ottaway, 2013, p. 4). According to Ottaway (2013), these regimes hold elections to get international recognition as democratic regimes but the space for opposition competition, media and civil society is narrow. Given the current political and media situation in Ethiopia, some categorize the regime as
semi-authoritarian (Kasleder, 2011; Megenta, 2010). Like in most other African countries,
mainstream broadcast media is still the dominant form of media in Ethiopia while newspapers are limited to the capital and other urban towns (Skjerdal, 2011). The largest media in the country is Ethiopian Broadcast Corporation (EBC), a state owned media house running a number of regional FM radio stations, a national TV and Radio stations. Furthermore, the media landscape in Ethiopia is characterised as one dominated by state media with limited private and free press (Human Rights Watch, 2014; Megenta, 2010). Ethiopia is frequently criticized for its absence of freedom of press and expression problems and is ranked 142 out of 180 countries on the world press freedom ranking for 2014 (Reporters Without Boarders, 2014). Due to this and other political, social and institutional challenges, the media which
13 serves as a space to entertain various social, political and economic views is close to non-existence (Megenta, 2011).
Additionally, Ethiopia is one of the least Internet connected countries mainly due to a lack of technological infrastructure. According to UN Broadband Commission (2014), Internet penetration in the country is only 1.9 per cent per population while the country’s population size is estimated to be 97 million. Ethiopia also owns one of the world’s most expensive broadband Internet (Human Rights Watch, 2014). The telecom and Internet sector in Ethiopia suffers from high government monopoly as the service is provided by a state owned sole provider, Ethio-telecom (Gagliardone, 2014). Even if household Internet access is low, many argue that the number of Internet users in Ethiopia is much higher than estimated as many Ethiopians use Internet in cyber/Internet cafés, government and private offices, academic institutions and through mobile phones (Human Rights Watch, 2014; Megenta, 2011). A study by Megenta (2010) analysing the use of Internet in Ethiopia describes it as mostly used for communication purposes, mainly to exchange emails with relatives abroad and as a source of sports information, while very few people use it as a source of political information. Users were also described as being young educated men with medium income who are mainly residents of the capital city Addis Ababa. Besides explaining the limit in Internet access and the low levels of political use of Internet, not much is known about political attitude of Ethiopian political Internet users. Recent studies and reports from International organizations studying press freedom and Internet use in Ethiopia suggest that the number of Ethiopians using social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are
increasing (see e.g. Human Rights Watch, 2014; Internews, 2011). According to World
Facebook Users Map (2012) and Seyoum (2014), the number of Ethiopians using Facebook in December 2012 was 902,440 and this number increased to 1.27 million in February 2014. Even if empirical findings need to confirm such a claim, these figures could tell us that a
14 certain section of the society is increasingly interacting and using social media for
informational purposes.
Keeping in mind the importance of political and civic engagement cultures, citizens’ motivation to participate and get involved in politics is another factor that influences
development of democracy (Demertzis et al., 2013). As stated first hypothesis of this study, one of the questions this study aims to answer is to what extent does citizens motivation to politically be informed drive their use of Internet. As “informational use of the internet encourages community involvement and foster civic participation” (Shah et al, 2005,p. 535), the development of the culture of being politically informed may have a positive long term effect in creating politically active and effective citizenry. With this in mind, let us continue discussing the research methods used to test the hypothesis and research questions posed above in this study.
Methods
This study used online surveys for collecting data. This research method is found suitable for two reasons. First, its capacity of ensuring the collection and analysis of a large amount of quantitative data, second; it is an effective tool for measuring attitudes and opinions at a group level (Brady, 2000). As this study is interested in measuring political attitude of individuals of relatively a large group anonymously, surveys were found to serve these needs much better than any other research method. Given limitations with logistic that comes along collecting data using paper based surveys or interviews to benefit from large sample size, online survey was found a feasible method for data collection for the current research.
Sampling
The current survey used non-probability sample (n=199) of Ethiopian Internet users. A non-probability sample was used to compensate for restrictions of sample availability due to
15 the sensitivity of the research topic in Ethiopia and the weak Internet connectivity. This
sampling is a suitable method when there are restrictions to fulfil a proper sampling of a target population (David & Sutton, 2011). Since the study targets those who are regular Internet users and do so actively for political purposes - respondents were recruited through personal contacts of the author of this study in addition to using social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Respondents were also reached by announcements on popular social and political commentators among the Ethiopian social media user community. During the time of respondents' recruitment however, it was learned that respondents find the topic - political attitudes - sensitive to discuss online; thus many refused to take part in the survey. This, according to informal conversations with respondents, is due to the fear of online surveillance. Furthermore, the survey questions were formulated in English language due to the
unavailability of online survey software with local language-Amharic. Thus, respondents had to have a good understanding of the English language in order to take part in the study.
Weak Internet connectivity was the other challenge faced during respondents' recruitment. As Internet connection is weak in Ethiopia, the cost of Internet especially for those who use the Internet in cyber cafes is expensive. Therefore, only those respondents who have access to the Internet either at work or home, or who are willing to overcome this
challenge, have taken part in this study. Aiming to explore the use of Internet in Ethiopia where costs and access are so problematic, this study can therefore offer an initial look at the motives, attitudes, and interests that drive a subset of Ethiopians who use the Internet for political purposes. Two limits on participants were enforced: they had to currently reside in Ethiopia, and they had to be at least 20 years old - the minimum cut-off appropriate to ensure that the respondents had sufficient awareness of their socio-political environment to yield quality data (Chzhen, 2012).
16 This study examined 199 responses; however the number of responses considered at different levels of statistical analysis varies. 74.9 % male and 24.9% female respondents took part in the survey, 70 % of them were between the ages of 20 and 30, while 27 % were between the ages of 30 and 40. 60% of the respondents reported of having a Bachelor's degree, while 26 % had a second degree and higher educational background. Majority (66%) of the respondents earn more than 5000 Ethiopian Birr monthly, which is equivalent to $250. 72% of the respondents are employed for wages and only 17% were self-employed.
Observing the demographic information of respondents, it can be observed that the sample by no means is a representative sample. It samples a subset within a population of Ethiopian Internet users. Thus, the findings of this study cannot be generalized to the larger Ethiopian population.
Measurement and operationalization
After agreeing to participate, and being assured of the anonymity of their responses,
respondents proceeded to a questionnaire measuring various political attitudes, Internet use behaviours, and personal characteristics. The survey had 39 questions and took about 20 minutes. First, respondents were asked questions about their personal characteristics. This included age, gender, level of education, employment status and Income. Then, respondents were asked questions about their Internet use behaviours. These questions included the frequency of their Internet use and their online activities. This section also included questions about their social media use, such as Facebook and Twitter. The last part of the survey
questions measured respondents' political attitudes. These included political efficacy, trust in government, likelihood of voting, closeness to political party and political participation(See Appendixes A for the list of survey questions used to measure the dependent and independent variables).
17
Political Internet use, the dependent variable is operationalized as informational and
interactive Internet uses. Political informational Internet use is an index composed of a list of politics-related informational online activities that respondents reported doing, including reading and/or watching news, reading and writing political blogs, using social media,
emailing and searching for general information (Quintelier & Theocharis, 2008, 2012). These items were compiled into a summative score, where respondents could score from 0 to 5, where 0 meant that they had never done any of the activities, and 5 meant that they had done all of them (Cronbach's α =.599, M = 2.95, SD =1.40). Other non-politics related Internet uses that were included in the list mentioned above were compiled to make an index called
non-political Internet use (Cronbach's α =.67, M =4.0, SD=1.79).
The second political Internet use index, Facebook political interactive use was composed of 4 politics-related Facebook interactive activity items (Quintelier & Theocharis, 2012). Respondents were asked to choose their politics related Facebook use from a list of social media interactive activities that were provided to them. Their responses were compiled into a summative score, where the range of scores was from 0 to 4, where 0 meant that they had never done any of the activities, and 4 meant they had done all of them. Items like conversing with friends and family, reading other people's post and talk about, sharing thoughts, opinions and views about social and political issues and share information, videos and photos of what is happening around them were included in the index (Cronbach's α =0.80, M=2.56, SD=1.51).
Political informational Internet use motive, one of the independent variable was
measured combining 7 measurement items adopted from use and gratification studies Kaye and Johnson (2002) and Papacharissi and Rubin (2000) and were modified to fit the context of the current study. Respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement to a list of reasons for accessing the Internet. Responses were recorded in a 5 scale point ranging from 1
18
= strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree (Cronbach's α=.85, M= 27.07, SD=5.31). The
motive items were presented with an introduction phrase "I use the Internet to..." followed by
find news and information that I cannot find on TV or radio, see what is happening in the world politics, share news and Information about what is happening around me (see
Appendix 3 for the list of statements).
Alternative informational use, the other independent variable, is a single item that was
included in the Internet use motive items. This is a 5 point Likert scale measured with the other motive items (M=3.1, SD=1.3).
Political efficacy was measured by using items that combine both internal and external
efficacy. The nine measurement items were compiled from the American National Election Survey (Dyck & Lascher, 2009), Craig et al. (1990) and Niemi, Craig, & Mattei (1991), studies that are frequently cited in scholarship studying political efficacy and other related political attitudes (e.g. Chan, 2014; Karp & Banducci, 2009; Lee, 2006; Pinkleton, Austin, & Fortman, 1998). Hoping to benefit from the diversity of the measurement items and
compensate for the political culture differences that exist between the western context where these items were developed and the Ethiopian society whose views of political participation are still forming, the measurement items were compiled instead of using items from one of the studies. Respondents were asked to report the level of their agreement with the nine
statements and their responses were recorded in a 5 point Likert - scale (1 = strongly disagree,
5 = strongly agree). As Internet use is mainly associated with internal/self-efficacy
(Newhagen, 1994), six of the items were used to measure internal efficacy while the other three measured external efficacy. The items included, People like me do not have a say about
what the government does.I do not think public officials care much about what people like me think (see Appendix 1 for the complete list of the items). The nine items loaded together well
19 on a single scale, and were thus averaged to create a single index of political efficacy
(Cronbach's alpha=0.70, M=27.2 and SD=5.23).
Political participation was measured using a nine-item measure by asking respondents
whether they participated in a number of political activities. The list included voting in elections, contacting government officials, discussing political issues with friends and family, being member of a political party, participating in an organized protest, posting political thoughts and views on social media sites, posting links to political articles for others to read, attending political meetings and campaigns and signing petitions about political and social issues. Responses were recorded as "Yes" = 1 or "No" = 0. These nine measurement items were adopted from studies including the ANES (2012) and Afrobarometer (2012). These items were compiled into a summative score, where respondents could score from 0 to 9, where 0 meant that they had never done any of the political activities, and 9 meant that they had done all of them (Cronbach's Alpha=0.76, M=14.2 and SD=2.35).
Trust in government is measured using a single item adopted from ANES (2012)
studies and was modified to fit into the Ethiopian context. Respondents were asked the
question, "How often do you trust the government for doing the right thing for Ethiopia?" and their responses were recorded on a 5-point scale ranging from 1=Never to 5=Always and “No
opinion” for those who either do not want to answer the question or have no opinion (M=2.69,
SD=1.6). Additionally, Demographic items like age, gender, level of education, income, employment and occupation were also recorded.
Result
Before continuing to discuss the results of this study, it is interesting to give a larger picture of respondent's political attitude as they were reported by the respondents as some of these figures will be used later in the discussion section of the study. Reporting their political attitudes, 45% of the respondents reported of being strongly interested in politics and a little more than half (59.4%) of them reported low to moderate levels of trust in government. A
20 little over six in ten (62%) of the respondents reported of having moderate to high level of political efficacy, Interestingly enough however, only 30 % of the respondents reported of being registered to vote in the last two elections in 2010 and 2015. 80 % of the total
respondents reported of not feeling close to any political party, while the other 19% percent stated of being close to a particular political party.
Continuing to the results, in the first hypothesis, I expected to find an association between political Internet use motives and actual political Internet use (both informational and interactive) in the Ethiopian context. A series of bivariate correlations, in Table 1, suggests that political Internet use motives are positively correlated with informational use (r=0.32, p<0.001) but not with any other non- political Internet use. Even if the association is
moderate, the association is only with informational Internet use but not with any other non-political Internet use, which suggests that non-political informational Internet use could be motivated by political Internet motives. Such a claim however needs stronger empirical evidence. Table 1 correlation Internet use motive Informational use Facebook interactive use Non-political Internet use Internet use motive 1 .329** .129(.08) .073
N 175 175 175 175
Informational use .329** 1 .330** .543**
N 175 199 198 199
Facebook Interactive use .129 .330** 1 .322**
N 175 199 199 199
Non-political Internet use .073(.33) .543** .322** 1
N 175 199 199 199
** P<0.001
On the other hand, there is no significant correlation between political Internet use motives and Facebook political interactive use, which could suggest that respondents' do not necessarily go online with a motive to discuss politics, rather their engagement in Facebook conversations are driven by the information they get on Facebook pages, perhaps this could be
21 implied with the correlation between the two dependent variables (r = .33, p<0.001);
respondents who use Internet for political information are also involved in online political interaction or their online interaction is driven by the information they consume on social media sites.
Furthermore, both of the dependent variables, informational and interaction use are correlated with non-political Internet use. Informational Internet use is strongly and
significantly correlated with non-political Internet use (r=0.54, p<0.001) and Facebook interactive is moderately correlated with non-political Internet use, suggesting that people who use the Internet for political purposes also use it for other purposes. To return to the analysis of interest, although, the findings suggest that political informational use is positively correlated with Internet use motives, these motives were not significantly correlated with the other dependent variable, interactive use, and thus H1 was partially supported.
The association between political efficacy and political Internet use is addressed in H2. In this hypothesis I expected to find an association between respondents' political efficacy and their political Internet use. A Pearson correlation analysis conducted to test this
hypothesis suggest that there is indeed a positive correlation between political efficacy and the two political Internet utilities, informational and interactive uses (see table 2). This could suggest that the more efficacious people are the more they use the Internet for political purposes; however the same cannot be said for non-political Internet use. With these positive correlations my second hypothesis that respondent's political efficacy and interest is
22 Table 2
Correlations of political efficacy, Internet use motives and political Internet use
Correlates(r) Information use Interactive use Alternative informational use Political efficacy Information use 1 .330** .300** .275** N 199 199 184 154 Interactive use .330** 1 .131(.07) .177* N 199 199 184 154 Alternative informational use .300** .131(.07) 1 .297** N 184 184 154 154 Political efficacy .275** .177* .297** 1 N 154 154 154 **p<0.001, *p<0.05
The next hypothesis, H3 predicts that high level of political efficacy in politics leads to use of Internet as alternative source of information. A Pearson correlation analysis suggest a positive and significant correlation between political efficacy and alternative use of the Internet (r=0.29, p<0.001). Thus, the higher respondents' political efficacy is, the more they use Internet as alternative information source. In sum, the positive correlation between alternative Internet use and political efficacy supports the third hypothesis.
23 Table 3
Hierarchical regression of political Internet use
Political Internet use
Political Informational Internet Use Facebook Political Interactive Use
Predictor variables Regression 1 Regression 2 Regression 3 Regression 1 Regression
2 Regression 3 Age .048 .042 .037 -.032 -.024 -.026 Gender -.044 -.047 -.051 .066 .133 .132 Level of education .021 -.078 -.080 .022 -.030 -.030 Income .075 .108 .140 .055 .059 .068 efficacy .138 .121 .023 .018 Interest in politics .176 .074 -.041 -.070 Trustingovernment11 .031 .042 .053 .057 Likelihood of voting -.261** -.271** -.227* -.229* Political participation .163 .121 .483*** .471*** Closeness to political party .143 .161 .030 .036
Political Internet Use
Motive .263** .076 Adjusted R -.019 .091 .135 -.025 .122 .118 R2 change .014 .151 .047 .009 .185 .004 Sig of change .78 .04 .01 .90 .001 .46 N 123 123 123 123 123 123 *** p<0.001, **p<0.01, *P<0.05
The last research question asks if users' political Internet use is predicted by factors like political attitudes. In order to answer this question, a hierarchal regression analysis was conducted by including various predictor variables models. Hierarchal regression analysis is a frequently used statistical analysis to analyse relationships between a set of independent variables and a dependent variable, while controlling for the effect of other independent variables sets in the regression and it is mostly used to find the best predictor variable (Lewis, 2007). This analysis was necessary in this study to examine the political attitudes that best predict political Internet use. The first model in the regression included the demographic variables age, gender, level of education and income; none of the demographic variables predicted the dependent variable. In the second block, where political attitude variables, political efficacy, Internet in politics, and likelihood of voting, trust in government, political participation and closeness to a political party were added, likelihood of voting negatively and
24 significantly predicted both informational use (β =-.26, p<.01) and interactive use (β=-.22, p <.05). The explanatory power in this model explained 9.1% of the variation in the dependent variable, information Internet use and 12.2 % of the variation in the other dependent variable, Facebook political interactive use. Furthermore, interactive use is significantly predicted by political activity (β= .48, p<.001) in this model of regression. This suggests that respondents who are actively involved in political activities are also active participants on political interactions on Facebook.
In the next and last model of regression where political Internet use motive was added to the regression, informational Internet use was strongly predicted by Internet use motives and the explanatory power of the model rose to 13.5%. This link between political Internet use motives and the political information Internet use confirms the findings of the first hypothesis even when other factors are controlled. On the other hand, political participation remained strong and significant predictor of interactive use even though the explanatory power of the model slightly declined to 11.8 %. To sum up, findings of the regression analysis (table 3) suggest that the dependent variables informational and interactive uses were
significantly predicted by two political attitude variables. Both of the Internet utilities were strongly and negatively predicted by likelihood of voting, while interactive use is significantly predicted by political activities. Additionally, Internet use motives were found to predict informational Internet use.
Discussion
As the Internet's potential in improving democracy is being explored, learning about its use among citizens in non-democratic countries gives a greater understanding to how its utilities can solve democratic challenges in these sides of the world. Given the access challenge citizens in these countries face, their political Internet use is also predicted by the level of their political information needs and their political attitudes. This study examined the
25 association Internet use motives and political attitudes have with political Internet use and the extent to which these attitudes and motives predict political use of the Internet in the
Ethiopian case. Gratification of political information needs is found to be the main force that drives respondents' political information use. This findings confirms findings of Kaye and Johnson (2002) that suggests that those with political information needs go online to fulfil those needs. This can also be linked with the current media situation in Ethiopia. Given the limited access to diverse political information, it comes as no surprise if this subset of Ethiopians search for an alternative source of information, through Internet in this case, by overcoming the connectivity and Internet cost challenges.
The other interesting finding in this study is that political interactive use is not linked with these Internet use motives, which could suggest that political online interactions are not necessarily motivated by these needs, rather by the information users find on social media sites.
The association between political efficacy and political Internet use suggests that the more political efficacious citizens are, the more they use the Internet for political purposes. However, these associations were not observed when other predicting variables were controlled which could suggest that political efficacy may not be the only predictor of
political Internet use. Perhaps these other predictors could have been clearly identified with a larger sample size. So it is important to consider the limitation that comes with using a small sample size.
This study also found political attitudes such as likelihood of voting and political participation are also important predictors of political Internet use. The negative association that likelihood of voting shows with political Internet use when other factors are controlled, seem to contradict with other research findings that suggest a positive association between the two variables (e,g. Kaye & Johnson, 2002, 2004). Findings of Kaye and Johnson
26 (2002),(2004) suggest that people who have the intention of voting are more likely to look for guidance in their voting decisions so they use Internet in order to fulfil this informational and guidance need. Contrary to this is a finding of this study that suggests that respondents with less likelihood of voting use Internet both as a source of political information and to interact about politics. Possible interpretation for this finding could be that people, who think their voices cannot change the political system mainly due to the current political situation in Ethiopia, might have given up on their civic engagements such as voting, not only that these people may not have trust both in the government system and the media. As a result of that, they constantly look for information that is different from what is provided to them by the state owned mainstream media and search for people who have similar political views to discuss about politics. Thus, most of the information searching and political interaction happens online on the Internet.
Related to this, a study by Kaye and Johnson (2002) suggest that people with higher political efficacy might be empowered to search for political information that is not available in traditional media. However, the causal arrow might be reversed - it may be that those who go online then feel more efficacious and interested because of what they find there.
Regardless the direction, the results suggest the important role of Internet for these political active citizens in Ethiopia. What makes the Ethiopian case more compelling is how this important role will continue to be challenged with surveillance and slow Internet connectivity. Looking at the current trends, arrest of bloggers, blocking of websites and online surveillance are some of the factors that discourage citizens from utilizing Internet for political purposes. To be clear, even if the culture of using Internet for political information and interaction grows, government restrictions, access to Internet and fear of surveillance will continue to challenge its political use.
27 In summary, this study looked at the political use of Internet among a
non-representative sample of the Ethiopian Internet users. Even though the findings cannot be generalized, there were interesting observations of the links between respondents' political attitudes and Internet use motives with their political Internet use. Here, it is important to note some of the limitations while conducting this empirical observation. This study took political attitude measurement items that are mostly used in well-developed democratic systems and used it in a semi-authoritarian political system, which endured some measurement disparities due to the political culture differences. Furthermore, in Ethiopia, where a regime is in power for more than two decades, most people particularly the youth do not see the regime in power and government institutions separately. To be clear, their image of the government is shaped with the image of the political party in power and this is because they have only seen a single party in government. Thus, their views of the regime be it positive or negative, overshadow their views of the political system and politics in general which may lead to a challenge of not having a clear political attitude. Conversely, it is also interesting to observe to what extent measurements and theories of well-developed democracies can be applied in political culture that is different in various aspects.
Finally, given the importance of Internet for countries such as Ethiopia, it is relevant to have an understanding of the extent its citizens utilize Internet to change political situations in their country. In light of this, the current study underlines that political use of the Internet is influenced by political attitudes and yet citizens' need for political information is at the heart of their political use of the medium. As citizens' political Internet use grows in countries where democracy is desired, citizen's exposure to critical information increases their
awareness of democratic values leading them to develop the ability to demand for democracy (Stoycheff & Nisbet, 2014), which potentially leads to a political change. Given the small sample size examined in this study, an in-depth investigation with a larger sample size testing
28 the unique link between political Internet use and likelihood of voting that was found in this study, could be a next step for research in the area. This could also be useful for getting a better understanding of the effect of political attitudes in political use of the Internet.
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33 Appendix A
Dependent variables: Political Informational Internet use
Q11 The following few questions are asked to learn about how you use the Internet. Internet use includes watching videos, reading news, searching for information on the Internet, using social media sites such as Facebook, reading and writing blogs, playing online games, downloading music and other activities you do one the Internet.
On average, how often do you use the Internet? Once a month or less
Several times a month About once a week Several times a week Every day
Several times a day
Q12 Which of the activities below do you do on the Internet? Please check all that apply. Read and/or watch news
Send and receive emails
Look for entertainment or sport information Use social media such as Facebook and Twitter Communicate with friends and family
Download and/or listen to music Learn what is happening in the world Play online games or watch movies online Read political blogs and political information Look for jobs and schools
Look for general information Shop online or buy and sell things Write blogs and online commentaries
Q13 What kind of news are you interested in reading or watching on the Internet? Please check all the kind of news you look for on the Internet.
Entertainment and sport news Economy and business news
Local and international news about Ethiopian politics News about Ethiopians living abroad
News about international events and happenings
Q14 What kind of blogs and information websites do you mostly visit? Religious blogs and websites
Blogs and news websites written about politics and the government Entertainment and inspirational blogs
Blogs and websites about sports and famous people Other kinds of blogs and websites
34
Facebook interactive use questions
Q22 On average, how often do you use Facebook? Once a week or less
Once a week
Several times a week but not every day Once a day
Several times a day
Q24 How do you use social media sites such as Facebook? Please answer to the question by choosing activities you do on Facebook from the list below. Remember to check all the activities that apply. Chat and interact with friends and family
Read what other people post and talk about on their Facebook pages Play games, watch videos or listen to music
Share my thoughts, opinions and views about social and political issues Share information, videos and photos about what is happening around me
Interest in politics
Q25 You are now in the last part of the survey. In the following few questions you will be asked about your opinions and views about your involvement in social and political issues.
How interested are you in what's going on in government and politics? Not at all interested
Not so interested Moderately interested Very interested Extremely interested
35 Q26 Would you say you are politically active? Politically active means being involved at least in one or more of these activities: attending political campaigns and meetings, being a member of political organization, participating in an organized protest, voting in an election, posting links to political articles for others to read online, discussing political issues with your family and friends, posting thoughts or comments on political or social issues online, contacting a government official and signing a petition about political or social issues.
Not at all politically active Not so politically active Moderately politically active Very politically active Externally politically active
Q27 There are different ways of being politically active, have you ever done any of the following activities?
Yes No
Voting in an election
Contacting government officials
Signing a petition about political and social issue Discussing political issues with family and friends Posting links to political articles for others to read online Being a member of a political organization
Participating in an organized protest
Attending political campaign event or speech Posting your thoughts and comments on political and social issues on social media sites
Likelihood of voting
Q30 A lot of people do not vote these days, perhaps because they are too busy, or just aren't interested. What about you; did you vote in the last national election in 2010?
Yes No
Q31 Are you registered to vote for the upcoming national elections? Yes
No
Trust in government
Q33 Many people have different opinions of the government too. How often do you think you can trust government representatives to do what is right for Ethiopia?
Never
Once in a while About half of the time Most of the time Always
