State Cohesion in the Internet Age

1. State Cohesion in the Internet Age Lucia Livak ll6581a@american.edu American University School of International Service

2. Research Question & Research Hypothesis • Are Internet usage and perception of state cohesion related? • Research Hypothesis: • Individuals who use the internet regularly, particularly social media users, will also perceive a greater amount of tension between factions within the country • Null hypothesis: • No correlation exists between Internet usage & perceived state cohesion

3. Background Information • Defining and Measuring Social Cohesion: Jenson (2010) • Explores strategies for measuring social cohesion • Provided basis for use of factions as a variable • Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict: Brown and Lager (2010) • Studied connection between factions and violent conflicts • Found tensions most dangerous with two equally sized groups or factions, but does not explore what creates factions • Investigating Internet usage as innovation adoption: Chatzoglou and Vraimaki(2010) • Found Internet usage correlated with males, the young, and those with money in Xanthi, Greece

4. Data • Unit of analysis/study : Individual • Country of study: Lebanon • Source of the data: • Nationally Representative Sample collected by Pew Global Attitudes Survey, 2010 • Reliability of the data : • Three questions have 560 respondents each, with 15 or fewer refusals. One question has 229 respondents with 1 refusal. • Dependent variable/s • Nominal, Q94: “Do you think there is a struggle between groups who want to modernize the country and Islamic Fundamentalists?” with categorical responses “Yes” and “No”.

5. Data • Independent Variable • Q63: “Do you use the Internet, at least occasionally?” with categorical responses “Yes” and “No” • Q64: “Do you send or receive email, at least occasionally?” with categorical responses “Yes” and “No” • Q66: “Do you ever use online social networking sites?” with categorical responses “Yes” and “No” • Q120: Gender, with categorical responses “Male” and “Female” • Q121: “How old were you at your last birthday?” ranges from 18 to 71 • Q131LEB: “Here is a list of monthly incomes. Which does your household fit into?” split into $500 increments, from “less than $500” to “$5501-$6000”

6. Central Tendencies For Q94, the mode is “Yes”, indicating an overall perception of tension between modernization and Islamic Fundamentalism For Q63 and Q64 about Internet usage and email, the mode is “No”. For Q66, which only uses Internet users, the mode is “Yes”, indicating any Internet usage is correlated with Social Media usage.

7. Bivariate analysis Results suggest no relationship between variables

8. Regression Analysis

9. Bivariate analysis • Results suggest no relationship between the variables

10. Regression Analysis

11. Findings & Policy Implications • The Null Hypothesis cannot be rejected. State Cohesion and Internet Usage, as defined by this study and seen in Lebanon, are not related. • Despite suggested correlation between the rise of social media and violent conflict or revolution, this study finds no correlation. While social media may still affect the end outcomes, it does not appear to be correlated directly with state cohesion.