Press/Politics7(3) Summer 2002 Scheufele, Nisbet / Being a Citizen Online Being a Citizen Online New Opportunities and Dead Ends Dietram A. Scheufele and Matthew C. Nisbet This study compares the impact of various types of traditional and Web-based forms of communication on political efficacy, knowledge, and participation. Findings suggest that the role of the Internet in promoting citizenship is limited. In fact, respondents who used the Web frequently for entertainment purposes were less likely to feel effi- cacious about their potential role in the democratic process and also knew less about facts relevant to current events.Regardless of the frequency with which people used the Internet for various informational or entertainment purposes, these analyses sug- gest that traditional mass media maintain a key role in promoting democratic citizenship. Can the Internet reverse faltering levels of American civic engagement and fos- ter greater levels of political participation? History suggests that claims regard- ing the contributions of new communication technologies to the maintenance and vitality of the public sphere are often little more than intellectual chewing gum: they taste great at first but inevitably lack substance. When radio was first introduced at the beginning of the twentieth century,it was conceived of as a sci- entific marvel, a wireless communication device that could connect citizens in interactive conversations from across the globe.Three decades later,just as radio sets had begun to be adopted across American households, the rapid commer- cialization of the medium had turned the device into one-way communication of news and entertainment, prompting some to predict a downturn in print media popularity.Instead of replacing print news,however,radio broadcasts motivated listeners to turn to newspapers for more detailed information (Defleur and Dennis 2001). When the telephone was invented, it was heralded as a catalyst for expanding social networks beyond the limitations of neighborhood connections, yet research indicates the telephone’s main impact, beyond certain emotional and psychological gratifications (O’Keefe and Sulanowski 1995), has been that 53 Press/Politics 7(3):53-73 © 2002 by the President and the Fellows of Harvard College