1. Jakub Macek & Alena Macková Masaryk University
Not that much digitally challenged? Civic participation and media-related practices in the Czech society
Jakub Macek & Alena Macková
Masaryk University

2. Digitally challenged? Repeatedly presumed and expected turbulences:
Do the participatory citizens differ in their relation to digital media?
Do they differ in relation to media in general?
What about those who use digital media as tools for some specific participatory practices?
And how to explain when the turbulences are not about to happen and the real digital challenge is missing?

3. Digitally challenged?
How come that we have not encounter the turbulences?
Age matters. Both in case of participation and media-related practices.
The role of cultural capital is less evident than we expected: when the political participation is conceived more broadly and when we focus on what media people use.
Digital media challenge HOW online audiences participate as well as HOW they receive content or interact .
Digital media do not challenege WHAT we do in terms of saturating needs.

4. QUALITATIVE INQUIRIES
(New) media audiences and their transformations
The „New and Old Media in Everyday Life“ project ( )
Ethnographic inquiries
Structuration model of media & concept of media ensemble
More than 30 qual. pilot studies carried by grad. students ( )
How to deal with media uses
(New) media in political participation/engagement
The „Žít Brno“ case ( )
The „Changes of Political and Public Participation in the Context of Transforming Media Technologies and Practices“ Project (2014)
Participation/engagement and media use of citizens living in big cities and villages  4 dimensions of „political“ agency (reception, interaction, engagement, participation)
Professional politicans‘ uses of new media in interactions with citizens
 What to focus on and how to deal with participation/engagement

5. SURVEY DESIGN Three major data chapters: Pilot: September 2014
Demographics
Media-related practices
focused on links between practices and objects
focused on situations
Political engagement and participation
Pilot: September 2014
Data collection: October / November 2014
N=1998
CAPI (Computer-assisted personal interviewing)
Highly structured questionnaire based on filtering keys.
Quota sampling (gender, education, age…)

6. CONCEPTS Media practices – with emphasize on everyday-
Who does what / with whom / when / how [with what technology]
Concept of Media ensembles
Political agency
Communicative practices:
Reception (where do people get the information + efficacy + interest…)
Interaction (do they people discuss politics?)
Conative practices:
Engagement (how do they engage as citizens, community members)
Participation (how do they participate in politics – local and national level)

7. ACTIVE OFFLINE, ACTIVE ONLINE, PASSIVE…

8. ACTIVE OFFLINE, ACTIVE ONLINE, PASSIVE…

9. PARTICIPATION AND RELATION TO THE POLITICS
Indicators:
Interest in politics; satisfaction with politics; satisfaction with democratic institutions; internal efficacy (national + local level); external efficacy (national + local level); informational efficacy (national + local level)
Not so many differences:
In general: low external efficacy, dissatisfaction with politics
Non-participatory resp.: less interested in politics, lower inf. efficacy (both on national and local level), lower internal efficacy
Respondents participating online are slightly more interested in politics than the two other groups and less satisfied than offline-participators.

10. PARTICIPATION AND MEDIA PRACTICES
Magazines daily
Magazaines daily-
Books daily
Books daily-
TV series daily
TV series daily-
Films daily
Films daily-
OFFLINE
11,1
78,3
18,6
69,6
19,7
75,9
18,7
95,1
ON+OFF
9,1 89
21,4
74,7
20,1
78,6
19,5
97,4
NONPART
10,8 64
14,3
55,1
25,1
77,3
20,5
94,2
Sport daily
Sport daily-
Other TV daily
Other TV daily-
Music daily
Music daily-
Spoken word daily
Spoken word daily-
Games daily
Games daily-
66,8 23 87
57,1
92,5
26,9
63,4
5,6
23,8
8,4 68
13,5 80
65,4
98,7
66,9 11
47,1
12,4
57,6
20,6
81,1
89,2 20
50,5
10,6
30,6

11. RECEPTION OF NEWS
92 % of the respondents receive news at least once a month, 66 % receive news on daily basis, 5 % never receive any news

12. PARTICIPATION AND DAILY RECEPTION OF NEWS

13. SOURCES OF NEWS
90 % of the respondents watch (other than local) news on TV,
46 % receive news online, 28 % read newspapers

14. SOURCES OF NEWS & PARTICIPATION

15. PREFERRED SOURCES OF NEWS

16. TYPES OF NEWS
What information the Czech news audience receives?

17. PARTICIPATION AND TYPES OF NEWS
Foreign news
National news
Regional news
Local news
Political news
Econom.
VIP
Culture
Sport
Science & Techn.
Crime
Traffic
Weather
Offline
56,1
66,5
37,1
42,3
40,3
32,9
33,8
34,2
39,4
17,1
36,7
30,6
71,7
Online (+offline)
59,3
64,3 34
42,1
48,6
46,1
23,6
41,1
32,6
30,7
38,3
29,3
66,7
Non-part
44,4
54,1
28,9 28
24,8
24,7
34,1
26,4
34,8
17,2
41,5 65

18. SO WHERE IS THE CHALLENGE?
Our non-exclusive hypothesis:
H. of “diffusion of innovation effect” (the field of interest is yet shaped by the logic of diffusion of innovation as described by E. Rogers)
H. of “common generation difference” (the difference among generations are more or less standard in time – during lifetime the values and preferred agencies change).
H. of “old vs. new media difference” (though not the technodeterministic one but rather Williamsian: preference of of mass media is linked with more intensive relation to the imagined communities – that comes with stronger sense of civic duty towards the state and municipality resulting in traditional forms of engagement and participation).
H. of “wrong focus effect” (it is not in our data because we asked wrong questions – though the subject of interest is right; therefore, the answer about the “digital challenge” is somewhere else)

19. SO WHERE IS THE CHALLENGE?
DIFFUSED PARTICIPATION
Social and mobile media as a source of permanent participation performed in front of semi-public audiences of social peers
NEW MEDIA IN SPECIFIC SOCIAL SPACES
New media as tools spatio-temporal reconfiguration of social spaces: social and mobile media as tools of reception and interaction in local / physical communities with a different spatial and interactional patterns
Macek, J., Macková, A., & Kotišová, J. (2015). Participation or New Media Use First? Reconsidering the Role of New Media in Civic Practices in the Czech Republic. Medijske studije, 6(11),
Macek, J. (2015). Social Media and Diffused Participation. Pp in Living in the digital age: Self-presentation, networking, playing, and participating in politics. Ed. Pascaline Lorentz, David Smahel, Monika Metykova, Michelle Wright.

20. Thank you. Jakub Macek, jakub.macek@gmail.com
Alena Macková,