Political Involvement

Political involvement, sometimes referred to as “engagement” or “interest in public affairs,” is of potentially great importance in political decision making because of its relationship to media use, learning about elections and issues, and public affairs participation. Research indicates that citizens who are high in political involvement are active information seekers who purposefully use media to learn about candidates, campaigns, and public affairs issues. Unfortunately, scholars in different disciplines, including political science, psychology, advertising/consumer behavior, and communication, have used the term involvement to refer to somewhat different but related constructs. In fact, even scholars within the same discipline sometimes have conceptualized involvement differently, occasionally relying on quite different questions and/or procedures to measure involvement. As a result, involvement commonly lacks definitional and operational clarity, and research results concerning this construct can be confusing or may even appear contradictory.

In early political communication research, scholars identified political involvement with general political interest, as well as with interest in the outcomes of specific elections. As researchers further developed the construct, they suggested that involvement represented a psychological trait reflected in citizens' concern for public affairs outcomes and associated with political efficacy and a sense of public duty. Currently in political communication, social scientists commonly treat involvement as a characteristic of an individual or as a characteristic of an event or other external stimulus. Scholars also recognize that these two manifestations of involvement work together. As a personal characteristic, scholars typically associate involvement with an individual's continuing, longterm interest in public affairs. In this instance, social scientists typically call such involvement “enduring.” This form of involvement refers to the strength of a preexisting relationship that individuals perceive between themselves and an issue, event, or other stimulus. This form of involvement produces a long-term, internal motivational state that contributes to greater message attention and systematic and purposeful media use among individuals as they seek information related to the object of their involvement.

When social scientists conceive of involvement as a characteristic of an event or stimulus, they typically focus on the heightened relevance of an event or other stimulus to an individual. In this instance, major events such as presidential elections or controversial public referenda typically stimulate citizens' involvement in public affairs on a transitory basis as they respond to the circumstances at hand. Political communication scholars commonly refer to this as “situational” political involvement and associate it with a temporary increase in perceived relevance or a heightened interest in a short-term outcome. This form of involvement is short-lived. As circumstances or events change, an individual's situational involvement ceases to exist at a high level, although it may manifest itself again during similar circumstances or events.