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THE PARTICIPATION DIVIDE:

Content creation and sharing in
the digital age
Eszter Hargittai & Gina Walejko
Version of record first published: 18 Mar 2008
To cite this article: Eszter Hargittai & Gina Walejko (2008): THE PARTICIPATION DIVIDE:
Content creation and sharing in the digital age , Information, Communication & Society,
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Eszter Hargittai & Gina Walejko
THE PARTICIPATION DIVIDE

Content creation and sharing in the
digital age1
Downloaded by [Indiana University Libraries] at 13:31 26 August 2012
This paper looks at the prevalence of creative activity and sharing in an age when
the barriers to disseminating material have been considerably lowered compared
with earlier times. The authors use unique data to explore the extent to which
young adults create video, music, writing and artistic photography, as well as
the prevalence of sharing such material online. Findings suggest that despite
new opportunities to engage in such distribution of content, relatively few
people are taking advantage of these recent developments. Moreover, neither cre-
ation nor sharing is randomly distributed among a diverse group of young
adults. Consistent with existing literature, creative activity is related to a
persons socioeconomic status as measured by parental schooling. The novel act
of sharing online, however, is considerably different by gender with men much
more likely to engage in it. However, once internet user skill is controlled for,
men and women are equally likely to post their materials on the Web.
Keywords Participation; skill; inequality; digital divide; creativity;

content; sharing; posting; gender; internet; web; users; digital
inequality; digital literacy; music; video; arts
Introduction
Recent developments on the web and in the realm of other digital media have
made it increasingly possible for people to share their creations with others.
No longer must one have large budgets to nance production and the necess-
ary inuence to get past gatekeepers when attempting to disseminate ones
work (Hargittai 2000). While eyeballs for viewership are not guaranteed,
the prospect of reaching large audiences is more within the realm of possibi-
lities than in earlier times. Does the availability of such opportunity lead to
widespread participation? If uptake is not universal, are there systematic
differences in who does and does not take advantage of these recent advances?
Information, Communication & Society Vol. 11, No. 2, March 2008, pp. 239 256
ISSN 1369-118X print/ISSN 1468-4462 online # 2008 Taylor & Francis
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/13691180801946150
240 INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION & SOCIETY
This paper examines the prevalence of content creation and sharing among a
highly wired group of young adults to consider whether new opportunities
offered by digital media to disseminate ones creations are distributed
equally among users.
If we nd unequal uptake of these activities then such discrepancies imply
the emergence of a two-tiered system where some people contribute to
online content while others remain mere consumers of material. Those
who share their content publicly have the ability to set the agenda of
public discussions and debates (McCombs & Shaw 1972, 1993; Iyengar
et al. 1982; Rogers 1993). From movie-making to op-ed writing, women
have been consistently under-represented among the most prominent creators
(Nochlin 1971; Bosman 2005; Kurtz 2005; Pollitt 2005; Cohen 2007; Lauzen
2007; Toms 2007). Whether this is due to women submitting less work for
inclusion or to the fact that womens creative output may not always be
taken as seriously as that of their male counterparts, recent online develop-
ments could level the playing eld by allowing women to sidestep traditional
gatekeepers. Are women and men participating in online content sharing in
equal ways? That is the question this paper sets out to answer.
Differences in peoples digital media uses
For years now, researchers have argued that beyond differences in access to
information and communication technologies, differential uses also have the
potential to contribute to social inequality (Mossberger et al. 2003; DiMaggio
et al. 2004; Warschauer 2004; Hargittai 2008). Consequently, research has
started to distinguish among the types of online activities in which people
engage (Wellman & Haythornthwaite 2002; Howard & Jones 2003). While
some people may only turn to digital media on occasion and for only a few
activities, others may make it an integral part of their lives whereby they
benet from various opportunities regularly.
Among young people in particular, concerns of digital inequality are less
likely to revolve around issues of access given that they represent the most
connected age group (Fox 2004). For this reason, scholars have examined dif-
ferentiated uses among the connected nding that positive outcomes are not
randomly distributed among youth from different backgrounds (Attewell &
Battle 1999; Livingstone & Helsper 2007). In particular, research in both
the US and the UK has shown that children from a higher socioeconomic
background are more likely to experience educational gains from home com-
puter and internet use than others. These ndings are in line with work on the
differentiated uses of more traditional media such as the viewing of edu-
cational television programming in earlier decades (Cook et al. 1975).
However, most work looking at differentiated internet use has explored
THE PARTICIPATION DIVIDE 241
what people view online and has been less concerned with how youth are
engaging with the more interactive aspects of digital media such as the
creation of content and its sharing.
In addition to considering peoples background characteristics in how inter-
net uses may differ across population segments, researchers have also looked at
details about peoples online experiences that may contribute to differentiated
uses. Howard et al. (2002) developed a user typology based on how long
people have been online and their frequency of internet uses. They found that
such user type was related to what people did online. Hassani (2006) focused
on another aspect of use, the number of locations where people could access
the internet. She found that those with more access points engaged in more
online activities from which they may benet. Not surprisingly, more access
to digital media allows for more opportunities which may be especially relevant
when it comes to time-intensive activities such as content creation and sharing.
Some of the work exploring details of differentiated internet use has
started looking at peoples digital literacy to distinguish among users abilities
in navigating digital media (Hargittai 2002, 2008; Mossberger et al. 2003;
Bunz 2004). This body of literature argues that the myriad of opportunities
on the web require different levels of know-how and those who possess par-
ticular skills will be more likely to benet from time spent online. Such dif-
ferentiated web savvy is likely to be especially relevant when it comes to
advanced uses of information and communication technologies such as
content creation and sharing.
Some scholars have started paying particular attention to differential rates
of participation with digital media (Jenkins et al. 2006). Forms of participa-
tory culture considered by such work include creative expressions like fan
ction and digital mash-ups as well as collaborative problem-solving, group
afliation and media circulation. The argument these authors make is that
practices of this sort will increasingly enhance our society through augment-
ing peoples skills necessary for functioning well in the contemporary work-
place and for diversifying creative and cultural production.
Jenkins and colleagues (2002) label this last concern the participation gap
and, similarly to the above-cited research on digital inequality, note that access
to technology no longer wholly determines potential inequalities derived
from differential information and communication technology uses. Rather,
exposure to experiences that increase participatory culture and digital literacy
are unequally available to individuals regardless of their access to digital media.
They contend that the participation gap may be overcome by a new media
literacy highlighting the importance of focusing on enhancing peoples
creative pursuits and abilities beyond providing technological access.
While more and more people have called for such rened understandings
of the so-called digital divide (Hargittai 2004), there is a dearth of data that
would allow researchers to explore these questions in detail. The Pew
Internet and American Life Project conducted a related study that is an

exception. Data collected in 2003 suggest that 44 per cent of American
adults had created or shared content online such as photographs, writing
and other forms of expression (Lenhart et al. 2004). Bivariate analyses of
the data show that people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds
measured as peoples education and household income were more likely
to engage in such activities than others. Although more than a select few
are participating in online creative pursuits, the activity is neither universal
nor randomly distributed among internet users. For example, those from
better-off households engage in more such pursuits.
The Pew report did not use more advanced statistical techniques to look
at the predictors of online creation and sharing, so it is hard to use the

report to pinpoint the real source of differentiated online participation.
Moreover, beyond looking at the demographic background of respondents
and the speed of their internet connection, the authors of the report
did not include other factors that may relate to online posting. In contrast,
we are able to consider additional aspects of peoples internet uses here such
as their online abilities.
In sum, despite the increasing focus on studying digital inequality by
differentiating types of uses and skills, and mounting concerns about a partici-
pation gap, little work has considered whether there are systematic differences
among those who share their creations online and those who do not. Thanks to
a unique data set that includes detailed information on all of these factors, we
are able to do just that. We examine whether peoples background character-
istics and their context of internet uses are related to creating content in a
digital age and sharing such material on the web.
Methods
Data collection
We draw on data we collected to examine the question of content creation
and online sharing. While resources such as the Survey on Public Participation
in the Arts (National Endowment for the Arts 2003) exist to explore peoples
engagement in creative activities, we know of no other data set that includes
the level of detail about the context of peoples internet uses and their ten-
dency to share their creations online in conjunction with detailed demo-
graphic background as the data set we analyse here. In addition to
background characteristics, we collected nuanced information about respon-
dents experiences with digital media focusing especially on their internet
uses in the domain of information seeking, content sharing and communi-
cation with people in their networks.
We look at the content creation and sharing practices of 1,060 rst-year

college students from an urban public research university. We conducted the
study in February and March 2007 at the University of Illinois, Chicago.2
Given our interest in looking at the creative practices of a diverse group of
students, this campus offers an ideal site due to the make-up of its student
body. US News and World Report (2006) ranked it among the top 10 national
universities regarding campus ethnic diversity.
One course on campus is required of all students: the First-Year Writing
Program. Working with instructors of this course, we gained access to stu-
dents enrolled in it. This ensured that a representative sample of the
schools rst-year student body would have the opportunity to participate.
Of the 87 sections offered as part of this course, 85 took part in the study
yielding a 98 per cent participation rate on the part of course sections.
Overall, there was a nal response rate of 82 per cent based on all of the stu-
dents enrolled in the course. In order to control for time in the programme,
this article focuses on students in the rst-year class.
We administered a paper-and-pencil survey to avoid biasing against
people who feel less comfortable lling out web forms or who spend less
time online and thus may have less of an opportunity to participate. The
average survey completion time was approximately 30 minutes. The survey
included detailed questions about respondents internet uses (e.g. experience,
context of use, types of sites visited, and online activities) and their demo-
graphic background.
Independent variables
We collected basic demographic information using standard modes of opera-
tionalization. Students were asked their year of birth, which we used to cal-
culate their age and included it in the models as a continuous variable. Male is
the base gender category (male 0, female 1). Information about race and
ethnicity was collected using the US Census Bureau (2000) questionnaire
format, and dummy variables are used in the statistical models, with White
as the omitted category. Consistent with work by others, parental education
is used as a measure of socioeconomic status (Carlson et al. 2000; Lamborn
et al. 1991; Stice et al. 1999). This information is included in the model as
dummy variables, with graduate degree as the base.
We also look at the relationship of online sharing with digital media
resources and experiences. We asked students about different locations
where they have access to the internet and created a summary variable.
We log this value for inclusion in the model on the assumption that additional
locations of access have diminishing returns regarding autonomy of use. We
also asked about ownership of various technical devices (e.g. laptop, digital
camera) and include a summary variable for this in the models.
To measure frequency of internet use, we gathered information about how

much time students spend on the web on an average weekday and on an average
weekend excluding time spent on email, chat and online phone conversations
(VoIP). We then calculate average weekly hours spent online based on these
gures. We also asked participants at what point in their education they
started using the internet regularly and calculated years of experience based on
this information. We log this gure for inclusion in the analyses based on the
assumption that there are diminishing returns to additional years of experience.
We measure skill using a previously validated instrument for digital literacy
(Hargittai 2005). Respondents were asked to rate their level of understanding
of 27 different internet-related terms on a ve-point scale (Hargittai forthcoming
2008). We then create a summary variable to signify online ability.
Dependent variables
We are interested in both who creates content among young adults, and who
shares their creations on the web. First, we asked students to tell us whether
they personally create any of these types of content? This question is not
restricted to online activities.3 Below this question were several options
and respondents were asked to mark all that apply. Here, we consider the
prevalence of four creative activities among participants: the creation of
music; poetry or ction; artistic photography; and lm or video.
Next, we queried students about their online posting habits. In particular,
we asked whether in the past year they had posted their own poetry or ction
online, their own music, and their own video. In the case of the latter two, we
asked about both posting their own music and video as well as music and video
they remixed from other peoples materials. We include information about these
activities on the aggregate (that is, in the analyses we do not distinguish
between posting ones own or remixed music and video). We asked about
the sharing of artistic photography in a somewhat more limited manner.
As part of a separate question concerning students use of social networking
sites such as MySpace and Facebook, we inquired whether they post artistic
photography that they have created. Undoubtedly this is more constrained
than having asked whether they post artistic photography anywhere, but it
is the only such measure we have so this is what we include here.
For both creative and posting activities, we calculated a dummy variable
that looks at whether a student creates any of the four types of content, and
whether a student posts any of the four types of content.
Methods of analysis
We rst present descriptive statistics about different types of peoples
tendency to create content and post their creations online. To examine
the correlates of creating content, we ran a logistic regression analysis on

whether people create content looking at background characteristics of the
user (age, gender, race and ethnicity, and parental education). To look at pre-
dictors of posting, we ran a logistic regression analysis rst on the demo-
graphic variables only and then with the inclusion of internet use measures
to examine the mediating role of these factors.
Sample descriptives
The 1,060 rst-year students included in these analyses represent a diverse

group of people.4 Table 1 shows descriptive statistics about the sample.
Fifty-six per cent of the respondents are female, 44 per cent are male.
Almost all are 18 or 19 years old, with a mean age of 18.4 and a
median of 18. Fewer than half are White and non-Hispanic. Slightly less
than 8 per cent claim African or African-American descent, almost 30 per
cent are of Asian or Asian-American ancestry, and just under one-fth are
of Hispanic origin. These students come from varied family backgrounds.
Over a quarter of respondents have parents whose highest level of education
is high school, with an additional 20 per cent whose parents do not have a
TABLE 1 Descriptive statistics about the sample.
per cent
women 55.8
age
18 64.8
19 32.2
2029 3.0
race and ethnicity
White, non-Hispanic 42.7
Hispanic 18.8
African-American, non-Hispanic 7.7
Asian-American, non-Hispanic 29.6
Native American, non-Hispanic 1.2
parents highest level of education
less than high school 7.4
high school 19.0
some college 20.1
college 34.4
graduate degree 19.1
TABLE 2 Sample participants internet use experiences.
standard
mean deviation
number of internet use years 6.4 (2.0)

number of hours on the web weekly 15.5 (10.0)
number of internet access locations 6.2 (2.1)
skill index 81.3 (22.6)

This measure concerns only web use and excludes time spent on email, chat or VoIP.
college degree. Students in this sample should not all be assumed to represent
future college graduates. Data about previous cohorts at UIC suggest that 25
per cent of rst-years will drop out of college by their second year (Ardinger
et al. 2004) and fewer than half (43.6 per cent) will graduate within six years
of enrolment (University of Illinois Chicago 2004).
Information about students internet user experiences suggests that digital
media are very much a part of their everyday lives (see Table 2). On average,
respondents have been online for over six years and spend over 15 hours
weekly visiting websites (not counting time spent on email, instant messaging
and online telephony). The majority (93 per cent) have access to the internet
at home, and on average they can go online at over six locations. Regarding
skill, they exhibit varying levels of know-how with some reporting consider-
able knowledge while others report very little understanding of internet-
related terms. The index measure of skill ranges from 29 to 135 with an
average score of 88.3 (standard deviation: 22.6) suggesting considerable
variation on this factor in the sample.
Engaging in creative activities
In order to consider who posts their creations on the web, it is important to

establish who is most likely to engage in creative activities in the rst place.
We asked students whether they create different types of content online or
ofine. Overall, 60.8 per cent of students engage in at least one of the four
content creation activities. The rst row of Table 3 shows the activities by
popularity. Students in the sample are most likely to create music with
over a third doing so. Artistic photography is the next most popular creative
undertaking with over a quarter of the sample taking such pictures. Just over a
quarter of the students claim writing poetry or ction and just over one in ve
report creating lm or video.
The rest of Table 3 breaks down creative pursuits by type of background
characteristics. We nd no statistically signicant difference between mens
TABLE 3 Percentage of respondents who create content.
artistic poetry/
any music photography fiction film/video
full sample 60.8 34.2 27.6 25.9 22.6

gender
male 62.3 42.6 25.2 20.5 26.6

female 60.0 27.4 29.6 30.3 16.9
race and ethnicity
White, Non-Hispanic 59.2 35.6 32.4 20.9 21.5
Hispanic 61.3 34.0 23.7 28.9 20.6

African-American, non-Hispanic 66.3 36.3 15.0 52.5 8.75
Asian-American, non-Hispanic 60.5 31.4 27.5 23.2 28.1

Native American, non-Hispanic 83.3 50.0 25.0 58.3 33.3
parental education
less than high school 57.7 35.9 17.9 34.6 12.8
high school 55.7 31.3 26.4 27.9 21.4
some college 62.7 32.5 30.2 29.2 24.5
college 56.3 31.3 26.6 18.7 21.2
graduate degree 73.3 43.1 32.2 30.2 28.2

p , 0.005, p , 0.001, p , 0.0001; this measure is restricted to posting on social
networking sites only.
and womens participation on the aggregate. However, once we look at

specic types of activities, considerable differences emerge. While just
over a quarter of women (27.4 per cent) report creating music, 42.6 per
cent of the men engage in this activity. Similarly with creating lm or
video, fewer than one in ve women (16.9 per cent) have done so compared
with over a quarter (26.6 per cent) of men in the sample. Women, however,
report larger rates of participation when it comes to writing poetry or ction:
30.3 per cent of female respondents versus 20.5 per cent of men engage in
such writing.
We also nd statistically signicant differences by race and ethnicity.
African-American and Native American respondents report signicantly
more writing than other groups. In contrast, African-Americans in the
sample are signicantly less likely to create artistic photography or lm
than others. In contrast, Whites in the study reported more creation of artis-
tic photography than anyone else and less writing of poetry or ction.
Similarly, we nd different levels of participation by parental education.
Students who have at least one parent with a graduate degree are considerably
more likely to create both music and video. In contrast, students whose
parents have no more than a high school education are signicantly less likely
to create artistic photography and video.
We used logistic regression to examine the independent relationship
between students demographic background characteristics and their ten-
dency to engage in creative pursuits. Table 4 shows the results of the analysis.
Consistent with research on arts participation (DiMaggio & Ostrower 1987;
McCarthy et al. 2001), we nd that students whose parents have higher levels
of education are more likely to engage in a mix of online and ofine creative
activities. Neither gender nor race exhibits a statistically signicant relation-
ship with creative pursuits suggesting that the differences found in Table 3 are
mediated by parents level of schooling. In the case of gender, it may be that
the different levels of engagement by type of activity cancel each other out on
the aggregate.
TABLE 4 Logistic regression on being engaged

in creative pursuits.
creates content
age 1.065
(0.093)
gender 0.906
(female 1) (0.120)
Hispanic 1.231
(0.234)
African/African- 1.451
American (0.381)
Asian/Asian- 1.057
American (0.163)
parents education: 0.479
less than high school (0.145)
high school (0.106)
some college (0.129)
college degree (0.092)
N 1,032
chi2 20.856
pseudo R2 0.015

p , 0.001, p , 0.01, p , 0.05; two-tailed.
Posting content online

Having established who creates content, we turn to the especially innovative
part of our data set by considering who is most likely to post material online
and what is shared most often. Of the entire sample, 41 per cent of students
report posting at least one of the four types of content on the web. Among
those who create content, 56 per cent post online.
Considering posting by type of content, the most likely material to be
posted is poetry or ction at 51 per cent among those who report writing
poetry or ction (see the rst column of Table 5). This is not surprising
given that writing is probably the easiest form of content to share. Close
behind and next in popularity is posting videos, which almost half of those
who create lm report doing. This may well be due to the recent popularity
of video-sharing websites such as YouTube that make the distribution of such
media fairly easy. In fact, more than four in ve people in this sample visit that
particular video-sharing website sometimes or often although clearly many of
them only do so for viewing material and not necessarily for contributing to
its inventory. Considerably fewer people report posting artistic photography
and music.
It is also worth considering some of these activities for the full sample to
appreciate the relative popularity of sharing online in the entire group (see the
second column of Table 5). Not one of the four types of content is posted on
the web by more than a fth of the sample. Taking into account the entire
groups posting habits, people are most likely to share videos on the web.
Next in popularity are written forms of creative work, then artistic
TABLE 5 Respondents online posting activities, without and with

controlling for engagement in creative pursuits.
among those who create

the particular content full sample
any 56.4 40.9

music (total) 28.7 12.9
music (own) n/a 9.0
music (remixed) n/a 7.1
artistic photography 35.2 14.9
poetry or fiction 50.9 16.4
video (total) 49.8 19.1
video (own) n/a 17.2
video (remixed) n/a 4.1

This measure is restricted to posting on social networking sites only.
photography, with music the least shared material. When distinguishing

between a persons own creative output versus the result of remixing other
peoples content, the former is more popular for both videos and music.
In the case of videos the difference is especially pronounced with 17.2 per
cent of the full sample posting their own creations compared with only 4.1
per cent sharing remixes.
Table 6 shows the likelihood of posting content online controlling for the
activity of making the various materials by type of subgroup. There is little
that is statistically signicant by race, ethnicity or parental education.
However, we nd considerable differences by gender. The gures suggest
that 63.6 per cent of men have posted at least one of the four types of
content in the last year while only 50.6 per cent of women shared any
form of creative content on the web. Men are much more likely to post
music than women, with 40.0 per cent of men claiming to have done so
compared with only 14.8 per cent of their female counterparts. Similarly,
55.4 per cent of men report sharing video whereas only 42.0 per cent of
women do so. In contrast, we nd no statistically signicant difference by
gender for posting poetry or ction and artistic photography.
TABLE 6 Percentage of respondents who share content, controlling for engagement in

creative pursuits.
poetry/ film/ artistic

any music fiction video photography
gender
male 63.3 40.0 54.2 55.4 40.0

female 50.6 14.8 49.2 42.0 32.6
race and ethnicity
White, Non-Hispanic 57.1 29.9 53.3 51.6 35.0
Hispanic 52.9 28.8 46.4 45.0 52.2
African American, non-Hispanic 47.2 20.7 42.9 71.4 41.7
Asian American, non-Hispanic 61.1 32.3 56.3 50.0 27.4
Native American, non-Hispanic 40.0 0.0 28.6 50.0 33.3
parental education
less than high school 55.6 21.4 51.9 80.0 42.9
high school 58.0 33.3 58.9 46.5 47.2
some college 57.9 27.5 50.0 38.5 32.8
college 55.6 28.1 41.2 50.6 36.1
graduate degree 55.4 29.9 55.7 56.1 24.6

p , 0.05, p , 0.01, p , 0.001; this measure is restricted to posting on social networking
sites only.
TABLE 7 Logistic regression on likelihood of posting

content online.
posts content
background only full model
age 0.809 0.784

(0.082) (0.080)
gender 0.588 1.045
(female 1) (0.099) (0.201)
Hispanic 0.839 1.042
(0.204) (0.273)
African/African- 0.713 0.973
American (0.224) (0.339)
Asian/Asian- 1.238 1.173
American (0.246) (0.255)
parents education: 1.307 1.704
less than high school (0.495) (0.697)
high school (0.359) (0.491)
some college (0.358) (0.418)
college degree (0.251) (0.313)
sum of access 1.255
locations (logged) (0.339)
hours on web/ 1.001
week (0.009)
years online 1.202
(logged) (0.416)
sum of devices 1.049
owned (0.045)
web user skills 1.035
(0.005)
N 628 621
chi2 19.864 95.563
pseudo R2 0.023 0.112

p , 0.001, p , 0.01, p , 0.05; two-tailed.
Do these differences in online sharing by gender hold up when controlling

for other factors? Table 7 presents the results of logistic regression on
whether people post any type of content on the web, rst looking only at
demographic background (rst column) and then adding details about peoples
internet uses as well (second column). The models include only people who
reported creating content.5
Despite considerable uniformity in age among respondents, this variable
still shows a statistically signicant relationship with tendency to post ones
creations online. Older students are less likely to engage in this activity. The
only other background characteristic that matters is a users gender. Women
are signicantly less likely to share their content on the web than men. That
is, while gender is a signicant correlate of online posting, neither race or eth-
nicity nor parental educational background explains variation in this activity.
What might explain this difference by gender? Once we also take into
account users internet experiences, we nd that online ability is an important

mediating factor in who shares content on the web. In fact, gender is no
longer signicant in the full model. This suggests that, if we compare a
man and a woman of equal skill, they are equally likely to share their
content online. This nding underscores the importance of considering
peoples online abilities in the context of their internet uses. Skill is
related to how people engage with information and communication technol-
ogies inhibiting some from taking advantage of the many ways in which one
can use digital media while supporting others in such pursuits.
Conclusion
Using unique data with detailed information about a group of diverse young
adults internet uses, we have shown that content creation in a digital age
is not randomly distributed among a group of young adults. Our ndings
suggest that creative activity is related to similar factors as it was in previous
times: a persons socioeconomic status. Students who have at least one parent
with a graduate degree are signicantly more likely to create content, either
online or ofine, than others. While it may be that digital media are levelling
the playing eld when it comes to exposure to content, engaging in creative
pursuits remains unequally distributed by social background.
Looking at the especially novel aspect of sharing on the web, even when
we control for creating content, we nd that posting ones materials online is
related to user characteristics. In particular, women are signicantly less
likely to share their creations on the web. Qualitative studies will be necess-
ary to help unpack the particular reasons for this relationship of gender with
sharing. We are able to examine the role of one possible intervening factor
here: user skill. We nd that web user ability mediates the relationship of
gender and the online posting of a students own content. Namely, once
we control for skill, we no longer observe differences in posting between
men and women. These ndings suggest that rened measures of digital
media use such as online abilities are essential for uncovering the nuanced
ways in which peoples internet uses are differentiated and have implications
for social inequality.
In the age of digital media, traditional consumers of material can also
become producers of content. However, our results suggest that a participation
divide exists between those individuals who post their information on the
web and those who do not. This variation is not randomly distributed among
a highly wired group of young adults. As online content becomes increasingly
important in setting social, political and cultural agendas, the existence of
such a participation gap will have increasing implications for social inequality.
Notes
1 The authors are grateful to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation for its support of this project. Hargittai is indebted to the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and The Lenore
Annenberg and Wallis Annenberg Fellowship in Communication. The
authors thank Sarah Burgard and Jeremy Freese for helpful comments.
They are also grateful for feedback received from people at Northwestern
Universitys Culture and Society Workshop, at the annual meetings of the
Association of Internet Researchers, at the University of Michigan
Communication Studies Colloquium and at Harvard Law Schools
Berkman Center for Internet and Society Luncheon Series. Additionally,
they appreciate the support of faculty and staff at the University of
Illinois-Chicago for making this study possible, namely, Mary Case, Ann
Feldman, Tom Moss and Karen Mossberger. Also, they thank the following
people for their assistance with data collection and entry: Waleeta Canon,
Soo An, Dan Li, and the group of undergraduate research assistants in the
Web Use Project group during the 2006 2007 academic year.
2 The authors of this article are not now nor have ever been afliated with this
university in any way other than in the context of this study. Focus on this
campus is not due to convenience; rather, it is the result of careful con-
sideration about what type of student population would be most helpful
in addressing questions of interest in the research project.
3 What is depicted in italics here was underlined on the original survey.
4 The survey included a question verifying students attentiveness to the ques-
tionnaire. A small portion of students (3.4 per cent) were identied as not
paying attention to question wording, suggesting that they were checking
off responses randomly instead of replying to the substance of the question.
The responses of these students have been excluded from the data and ana-
lyses presented here, so as to minimize error introduced through such
respondents.
5 Results are robust when the analyses are performed on the entire sample.
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Eszter Hargittai is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Soci-

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lations of individuals use new media, including how academics use weblogs
and how college students use the web. She is also interested in expert and
science communication. Address: Media, Technology, and Society, School
of Communication, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60201, USA.
[email: [email protected]]

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THE PARTICIPATION DIVIDE

Keywords Participation; skill; inequality; digital divide; creativity;

Differences in peoples digital media uses

Internet and American Life Project conducted a related study that is an

at the predictors of online creation and sharing, so it is hard to use the

We look at the content creation and sharing practices of 1,060 rst-year

To measure frequency of internet use, we gathered information about how

2008). We then create a summary variable to signify online ability.

the correlates of creating content, we ran a logistic regression analysis on

The 1,060 rst-year students included in these analyses represent a diverse

TABLE 1 Descriptive statistics about the sample.

TABLE 2 Sample participants internet use experiences.

number of internet use years 6.4 (2.0)

Engaging in creative activities

In order to consider who posts their creations on the web, it is important to

TABLE 3 Percentage of respondents who create content.

full sample 60.8 34.2 27.6 25.9 22.6

Hispanic 61.3 34.0 23.7 28.9 20.6

and womens participation on the aggregate. However, once we look at

TABLE 4 Logistic regression on being engaged

Posting content online

TABLE 5 Respondents online posting activities, without and with

among those who create

any 56.4 40.9

photography, with music the least shared material. When distinguishing

TABLE 6 Percentage of respondents who share content, controlling for engagement in

poetry/ film/ artistic

TABLE 7 Logistic regression on likelihood of posting

background only full model

age 0.809 0.784

Do these differences in online sharing by gender hold up when controlling

account users internet experiences, we nd that online ability is an important

ment and validation, International Journal of Human Computer Interaction,

Howard, P. E. N. & Jones, S. (2003) Society Online, Sage Publications, Thousand

relative weight and onset of obesity among female adolescents, Journal of

University of Illinois Chicago (2004) Graduation Rate Disclosure Statement,

Eszter Hargittai is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Soci-

Gina Walejko is a Ph.D. student in Northwestern Universitys Media, Technol-

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