Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The paper reviews current literature on the impact of communication media on civic engagement. Studies examining the impact of television, telephone and the Internet are examined and critiqued. Special emphasis is placed on inadequacies of the Internet (or the Web) as a research construct in social sciences, and new five-factor model of communication media is proposed. According to the model, there are five basic dimensions to any communication technology: interactivity, directionality, mode, latency and capacity. The paper also proposes a reconceptualization of the social capital construct and introduces a network model of social capital for the information era. The models are then discussed in relation to a new communication policy initiative by the Aspen Institute that uses technical layers of a communication system as bases for regulatory action in the age of media convergence and transition to an IP environment.