數位時代媒介使用行為與政治知識成因之析探：網路與非網路使用族群之比較分析

Exploring the Relationship between Media Use and Political Knowledge in the Digital Era: A Comparative Analysis among Internet and Non-internet Users

政治知識攸關民主政治運作的良窳，不僅隱含公民對政治事務的認知，公民評價政治世界的能力，更是公民參與品質的礎石。有趣的是，公民在不同時期擷取政治知識之途徑不盡相同，尤其在二十一世紀，受惠於新興資訊科技的推陳出新，大眾傳播媒體所具備之資訊傳播能力無遠弗界，能提供公民更便利、更豐富、更即時的政治新聞，對政治知識的傳播管道產生重大的影響。換言之，傳播媒介的蓬勃發展為公民創造一個豐富的資訊環境，不僅大幅提昇資訊的內容與數量，也增加公民選擇資訊的自由，甚至能夠讓公民由資訊的接收者轉變為資訊的提供者，在這個脈絡中討論公民的媒介使用行為與政治知識之間的關係更具有意義。準此，本研究之目的主要是探究公民的傳播媒介使用行為與政治知識之間的關聯性，並聚焦於網路與非網路的使用族群，比較分析媒介使用行為對其政治知識所產生之影響。本研究先從相關文獻中歸納出媒介使用行為和政治知識之間的若干假設，再採用中央研究院社會學研究所在2008年所執行之「社會變遷基本調查計畫」資料加以檢證。本研究的重要發現如下：首先，網路與非網路使用族群在人口結構、媒介使用行為與政治知識上有明顯差異；其次，相同的媒介使用變項對解釋網路與非網路使用族群之政治知識的效果不盡相同，顯示這兩個族群不僅在人口結構、媒介使用行為或政治知識存在差異，甚至影響到人口結構與媒介使用行為對政治知識的解釋效果；第三，網路使用族群具備「高度媒介使用，低度模型解釋」的特質，且新興媒介的使用行為與政治知識取得的關聯性並不高；最後，評估網路使用族群的使用行為與政治知識之間的關係更顯複雜，可能會因為使用者偏好某些特定的議題，或受到不正確的資訊影響，而干擾媒介使用行為對政治知識變異的解釋能力。

Political knowledge is closely related to the quality of democracy, which not only implies the citizen's recognition to political affairs but their ability to evaluate the political world as well as the foundation to the quality of citizen involvement. Interestingly, citizens discover different paths to capture political knowledge, particularly in the 21(superscript st) century where the benefit of information communication technology has equipped the mass media with ability of information dissemination, providing the citizens with more convenient, various and immediate political news and resulting in major impacts in the dissemination of political knowledge. In other words, the boom of dissemination media also creates a rich information environment for the citizens, which not only substantially improves the information content and quality but also increases the freedom for citizens in terms of information choices. The citizens may even become the information providers instead of information recipient, contributing to a more significant discussion from the context on the media use and political knowledge of citizens. For this reason, the purpose of the study aims to explore the correlation between the use of media and the political knowledge in citizens, with focus on the internet and non-internet users to compare and analyze the impact from media use on political knowledge.The study concluded with several assumptions between the media use and political knowledge from relevant literature, followed by adopting the data from”Taiwan Social Change Survey”implemented by the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica in 2008 with verification. The study drew important discoveries as described below: 1. There is a significant difference for internet and non-internet user in terms of demographic structure, media use and political knowledge. 2. The same media use variables for explaining the effect on the political knowledge between the groups of internet and non-internet user are not completely the same, indicating that these two groups not only different in terms of demographic structure, media use and political knowledge but even affect the explanatory effects for demographic structure media use on political knowledge. 3. Internet user have characteristics in”high media use and low modular explanation”while the user of emerging media contains low correlation with the acquisition of political knowledge. 4. The relationship between the media use and political knowledge of internet user become more complex, which could possibly be interfered with media use on the explanatory ability of changes in political knowledge due to specific user preference on certain issues or subject to effect from incorrect information.