Cultural Capital’s Effects On Network Political Participation

As we enter into the Web2.0era, many netizens’ behavior have been branded as political participation. And their concerns, discussions organizations on public issues have deeply changed our public life, especially the relationship between the nation and its citizen. As network political participation has gradually become one of the most important parts of online behavior, it turns into a significant issue that network sociology has to deal with. According to the literature review on network political participation, I find that researches on the basic structure and behavior logic are thin and rough which need to be further studied. Therefore, by using a scale, this study firstly measures network political participation behavior and the netizens’ cultural capital. Secondly, by using the multiple regression model, this study analyzes the influential factors on network participation from the perspective of cultural capital.The research reveals that urban residents’ network political participation can be divided into two types. That is political discussions and political interest appeals. The factors scores of those two network political participation types indicate that firstly the network political participation level of China’s urban residents is on the low side. However, political discussion shows higher degree of participation relatively, while political interest appeal is relatively low. Secondly, from the perspective of the influential factors of network political participation behavior, there are two dimensions. In personal characteristics, gender has a significant impact on political discussion while age and nationality have few impacts on both types of network political participation. The variables of degree of Internet use—duration of Internet, online frequency, online time—show no significant effects on network political participation. Thirdly, from the perspective of cultural capital, the accumulation of political knowledge and political skill has positive effect on network political participation. And the participative political idea plays a positive role in political discussion while acts negatively in political interest appeals. At the meantime, subordinative political idea and parochialism are negative to promote network political participation.In conclusion, the accumulation of cultural capital is significant to urban resident’s network political participation and plays an important role in promoting network political participation.