Påvirkes vælgerne af deres politiske internetbrug? Resultater fra en undersøgelse af folketingsvalget 2007 på nettet

This article investigates whether political use of the internet affects users politically. Using a combination of log- and survey data from a study of internet use during the Danish 2007 parliamentary, and inspired by theories on agenda setting and on the active/interactive user, three hypotheses are tested: 1) that those who use the internet most intensively politically are also the most politically affected, 2) that "net activists" (web 2.0 users) are affected more by their political internet use than "information seekers" (web 1.0 users), and 3) that those who are somewhat or little interested in politics are those most affected by their political internet use. All three hypotheses are by and large verified. Furthermore it is demonstrated that the single most important factor in explaining variation in whether users are affected politically or not by their use of political features of the internet, is whether they are active political net users or not. While this conclusion seems trivial it demonstrates that the internet works very much like other media: political use of the media has political effects. What is less trivial however, is that it is also demonstrated that certain types of uses have more profound political effects than others.