Political Efficacy, Self-presentation And Online Civic Participation

The emergence of social networks has profoundly reshaped people’s life. Compared to traditional media, social networks have provided a more open platform for users to express their opinions and appeals. With the dramatic increase in the number of users, social networks have become a place where youth group is involved in civic participation in mainland China.Based on Reasoned Action Model, this study employs the mixed research methodology, investigating the correlation among political efficacy, self-presentation and online civic participation behavior via Confirmatory Factor Analysis, as well as analyzing the relationship among social network use, social capital and online civic participation through case study.The study reveals that, in the two dimensions of political efficacy, internal efficacy has a significantly positive correlation with online civic participation, while external efficacy has a significantly negative one. In the four dimensions of self-presentation, competence, supplication, and exemplification have significantly positive correlation with online civic participation respectively, while ingratiation has a significantly negative one. Furthermore, different types of social capital demonstrate distinct degrees of enthusiasm in online civic participation when using social networks. Bonding Social Capital has the highest involvement in online civic participation, and Maintained Social Capital ranks the second, while Bridging Social Capital has the lowest.The results of the mixed research are comprehensively enunciated and summarized at the end of this study. Moreover, the author has conducted a critical thinking over social network use, and put forward recommendations on Internet governance and civic engagement via social networks.