Determinants of Digital Citizenship Participation

Abstract

More than ever social media has a fundamental role in the public opinion and in the way people participate civically, even creating new ways of intervening and participating in society. Therefore, with digitalization of citizen engagement and participation it is fundamental being a digital literate citizen. There are also other variables that contribute to digital citizenship participation such as life satisfaction that in other studies is commonly studied as a dependent variable. Taking this into consideration, the aim of this master thesis is to propose a theorical model that explains the determinants of digital citizenship participation. The proposed model was empirically validated in the context of a European country. Results were obtained from a data sample of 409 citizens. To test the model, a quantitative SEM-PLS was used. The results indicate that digital literacy, social media usage and life satisfaction determinants explain 31.1% of digital citizenship participation variation.