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In recent years, research has come to recognize that nonpolitical associations have unintended but important consequences for citizens' participation in public affairs. Scholars theorize that these associational activities embedded within social networks and sustained by confidence in the motives of others--encourage and facilitate participation in civic life. This study tests and broadens these theses by (1) assessing the relative impact of different types of associational activities (i.e., informal socializing, public attendance, and religious participation) and (2) examining interactive relationships between these activities and generalized interpersonal trust. Findings show that all of these associational activities significantly contribute to civic engagement. Further more, all three interactions between the social associations and social trust are significant, indicating that those involved in associational activities are even more likely to become civic participants when they hold trusting attitudes toward others.

This article examines the influence of Internet usage on social capital, civic engagement, interpersonal trust and overall life-contentment; while the use of Internet, television and newspaper among Generation X, Baby Boom and Civic Generation are compared. The authors find that people who use the Internet for information have a positive relation with production of social capital, while people who use the Internet for recreation-social purposes have a low level of civic engagement.

The main question in political communication research is how media helps citizens in becoming informed voters, communication often focuses on the means, while political science directs its attention on the ends. The studies focus on traditional form of media like newspapers, TV, to assess the influence on voters and some innovative ways of distributing political information are also discussed.

An analysis of intramedia mediation, an often overlooked political communication-based media effect and the indirect effects that stem from relationships that exist among various forms of media use, is carried out. The analysis reveals that the overall influence of public affairs media use on citizens knowledge about political campaigns increases significantly as a result of taking into account those relationships that exist among various forms of news use.

An 11-item Affinity for Political Humor (AFPH) scale is theorized as a higher-order latent factor with four lower-order latent factors (incongruity, superiority, anxiety reduction, and social connection). The theorized measurement model and several alternative models are tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). In addition, reliability and validity assessments are provided. Analyses are conducted using four data sets collected between December 2009 and March 2011 (total N = 1860). Results reveal the theorized model to fit the data well, but also indicate that an alternative model (four lower-order latent variables only) retains the strongest and most consistent fit across all four data sets. Reliability assessments reveal strong internal consistency for the 11-item AFPH scale, as well as for each of the four sub-dimensions. In addition, correlational analyses reveal the AFPH measures to retain strong validity (i.e., statistically significant and positive correlations with political TV satire consumption). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which demonstrated a variety of potentially important effects of watching televised presidential debates on voters in the United States (U.S.). Impact of the 1992 presidential debates on voters' perceptions; Relevance of issues discussed in the debates; Emphasis on the general presidential debate between Texas governor George W. Bush and U.S. Vice President Albert Gore, Jr. on October 3, 2000 in Boston, Massachusetts.