ABSTRACT Although a growing number of studies are examining the relationship between Internet use and political participation, varying study characteristics make the overall effect size difficult to estimate. Using a meta-analysis, we estimated the mean effect size and tested whether the effect size was influenced by study characteristics. Data for this meta-analysis were derived from 56 papers reporting 63 independent studies. Results revealed that Internet use had a weak relationship with political participation (rc = .22). Moderator analyses demonstrated that type of Internet use, Internet use measure, Internet use for news, type of political participation, sample origin, and survey year significantly moderated the relationship between Internet use and political participation. For instance, Internet use including news (rc = .27) had a significantly stronger relationship with political participation than did Internet use excluding news (rc = .19). European samples (rc = .27) had the largest mean correlation followed by North American samples (rc = .23) and Asian samples (rc = .18) in decreasing order of strength of relationship. The theoretical and methodological implications of the findings are discussed.

中文翻译：

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互联网使用与政治参与关系的元分析：检验主要效应和调节效应

摘要 尽管越来越多的研究正在研究互联网使用与政治参与之间的关系，但不同的研究特征使得整体效应大小难以估计。使用荟萃分析，我们估计了平均效应量并测试了效应量是否受研究特征的影响。这项荟萃分析的数据来自 56 篇报告 63 项独立研究的论文。结果显示，互联网使用与政治参与的关系较弱（rc = .22）。调节分析表明，互联网使用类型、互联网使用量度、互联网新闻使用、政治参与类型、样本来源和调查年份显着调节了互联网使用与政治参与之间的关系。例如，互联网使用包括新闻 (rc = . 27) 与政治参与的关系明显强于不包括新闻的互联网使用 (rc = .19)。欧洲样本 (rc = .27) 的平均相关性最大，其次是北美样本 (rc = .23) 和亚洲样本 (rc = .18)，按关系强度递减顺序排列。讨论了研究结果的理论和方法学意义。