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Grounded in Media System Dependency theory, this work investigates the impact of new media on political efficacy. It suggests that dependence on online resources affects people’s perceptions about the democratic potential of the Internet. Using structural equation modeling, the study tests the relationship between political attitudes and the perceived utility of the Web. The analysis employs measures that take into consideration the facilitating role of communication technologies. Results indicate that online political efficacy is associated with individual views about the comprehensiveness and credibility of new media. Efficacy is also linked to the perceived ability of online tools to aid the maintenance of ideologically homogenous social networks. The intensity of Internet dependency relations is found to be predicted by the perceived comprehensiveness – but not credibility – of online news.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the unique effect of ethnicity on people's internet connectedness. Internet connectedness is a multi‐dimensional relationship that individuals form with the internet.

Survey findings from a study of four ethnic groups living in seven residential areas within ten miles from the Los Angeles Civic Center indicate that ethnicity has a significant unique effect not only on the rate of people's internet access, but also on the three dimensions of the internet connectedness index: context and history; scope and intensity; and centrality, after controlling for individual socio‐economic factors.

The results indicated that African‐Americans lagged behind other ethnic groups in all three dimensions of their internet connectedness. This suggests that the ways in which the internet is incorporated into people's everyday lives are likely to differ by geo‐ethnic areas.

Implications of these results are discussed from a “communication infrastructure framework,” which provides an ecological framework to interpret the ethnic differences in the multiple dimensions of internet connectedness.

Focusing on social network services (SNS), the purpose of this paper is to propose a research model to investigate individuals’ SNS usage facilitators and inhibitors from the perspective of individuals’ media system dependency (MSD) and privacy concerns.

The research model will be tested with data collected from online users of Facebook. The survey yielded a total of 403 responses for the data analysis which was conducted by measurement and structural models.

The findings indicate that SNSs members strive for understanding, orientation, and play dependencies which facilitate their satisfaction and social presence, and subsequently fosters their continuance intention toward the SNS. In addition, the members’ privacy concerns decrease satisfaction and social presence online.

First, this study has contributed to the authors’ understanding of an individual’s SNS facilitators and inhibitors from the theoretical perspective (i.e. MSD theory and privacy concerns). Second, satisfaction is a strong antecedent of continuance intention and would dilute the effect of social presence on an individual’s SNS continuance intention.

The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of media use on environmental protection behaviors among college students.

A total of 182 college students from H universities, including science, engineering, liberal arts and art, were surveyed. This study used structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the data based on the proposed model, including media use, environmental protection awareness, environmental protection intentions and environmental protection behaviors, and then analyzed the impact of different gender, grade and disciplines on college students' environmental protection behavior by T-test and ANOVA.

First, it can be seen from the structural equation model analysis that media use has a significant impact on environmental protection awareness and environmental protection intention of college students, while media use has no significant direct impact on their environmental protection behaviors, but environmental protection intention has a mediating effect between media use and environmental protection behaviors. Second, the analysis of control variables explained that gender and disciplines have no significant impact on college students' environmental protection behaviors, while grades do.

Research on media use on environmental protection behavior was limited. This study proposed a new model of the impact of media use on environmental protection behavior and deeply analyzed the effect of media use from the perspective of environmental protection behavior. In addition, this study put forward research suggestions from the perspective of media publicity and environmental protection, hoping that the research conclusions could provide a basis and reference for ecological environment construction.

The last ten years have shown a significant upward trend of engagement in public management reflecting a significant increase in interest in the topic. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the benefits and factors affecting the construct of civic engagement that thus far are missing in the current literature through the analysis of studies published in the main journals of management.

Through a systematic literature review, the current research tries to advance the progress in the understanding of the civic engagement construct analyzing a sample of 96 papers published in the main journals on the subject areas of “communication,” “marketing” and “public sector management.”

The literature was codified and characterized as follows: level of analysis, variables that affect civic engagement; benefits of civic engagement; and theoretic and methodological approach. This research explores the construct through an analysis of the literature found in the main scientific journals to intercept its various profiles and facets alongside the mechanisms that precede and follow its manifestation.

Public organizations can no longer do without engaging citizens in decision-making processes. Public managers can use these findings to establish a connection with their citizens and influence their publics through commitment and managerial actions that guarantee direct democracy.

This is the first research that aims to study the phenomenon in the public sphere from a multidisciplinary perspective that is as yet incomplete. An integrated vision can highlight current and future developments and eventual opportunities for further research.