DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP AS MULTIPLE POLITICAL PARTICIPATION? PREDICTORS OF DIGITAL POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN SLOVENIA

A significant decreasing trend in political participation could be observed in so-called Western democracies in the last decades of the 20th century. In this framework, researchers largely agree on the key factors of participation: from generational differences and socio-economic status through civic values to civic competencies. The emergence and expansion of the Internet have brought new opportunities to expand political participation practices and to include in these practices certain groups which have so far been less active. By analysing the presence of various forms of participation via the Internet in Slovenia, we assess a thesis on the (possible) expansion of space for political participation and search for answer(s) to research questions about the relationship between traditional forms of political participation in general and digital forms of participation: a) are online forms merely combining with other traditional forms of participation; or b) are they emerging as a new type of political participation? We also investigate whether digital participation does indeed involve new groups of people and who are potential 'digital citizens'. In the analysis, we use the latest data from the Slovenian Public Opinion Survey 2013, which includes both information on the forms of political participation generally and information on digital-specific forms of participation.