Does Internet deepen the civic divide?

In a very interesting article published by the French newspaper "Le Monde" on June 22nd, political scientist Thierry Vedel asserts that Internet deepens the civic divide, strengthening the expertise of those who already take interest in the political life while others would content themselves with the television as main source of information. Based on a study led in December 2009 by CEVIPOF (Centre for Political Research at Sciences Po in Paris), within the framework of the European project Mediapolis, Vedel explains that 48 percent of the respondents chose television as their main source of information about politics while 21 percent opted for the radio. Nevertheless, the study proves that the importance of television decreased over the years while that of the Internet increased.

Today, 11 percent of the people questioned use the Internet as a first source of information about politics. The written press has become a secondary source of information, favoured by persons with advanced degrees (national daily newspapers) or by the elderly (regional daily newspapers).

The survey also reveals selective practices: our political preferences guide our choices of the TV news we usually watch, the newspaper we read, and the radio station we usually listen to. Basically, left-wing supporters would naturally opt for the public service channels. And it goes even worse on the Internet, as nearly three quarters of the people questioned said they visit the sites that share their point of view, whereas that ratio is only half in the case of traditional media.

Last but not least, citizens who are highly interested in politics have peculiar practices: they get informed more via the national daily press, the internet and the radio, whereas, conversely, the non-politicized citizens get their main piece of political information via the television. For specialists like Markus Prior, American author of "Post-broadcast Democracy", this is a serious problem, for the Internet boom and the increasing number of specialized TV channels allow those who take little interest in politics to turn away from it even more. At the risk of increasing the civic divide.

A ray of hope? As the young generations are adopting the Internet in large numbers, Thierry Vedel suggests that we should invent applications that simplify and make more attractive the access to political information. For training the numerous opinion leaders that influence their circle of friends may be determining for the future of democracy.

• Internet deepens the civic fracture, by Thierry Vedel
• The CEVIPOF survey on the blog of Richard Descoings, director of Sciences Po (Institute of Political Studies)