DEMOCRACY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

This study investigated the influence of ICT on the democratic character of participation amongst Nigerian voters. A survey questionnaire was used to collect data from university students on ICT influence on politics in Nigeria. 350 college student respondents were selected using proportional stratified random sampling. Response rate was 100%. Additionally, 350 Web sites were content-analysed. Findings show that the Internet penetration is still very low in Nigeria context, the awareness about the Internet usage is still limited to and among students and interested middle-class people only, who could afford a PC and connect to the Internet. Principal component analysis yielded five factors, namely; internet confidence, internet usage, political knowledge, political mobilisation and political participation. Regression showed that internet confidence and political knowledge were statistically significant predictors for both political mobilisation and political participation, and they were of practical importance and replicated, but internet usage was not replicated.