Recently, increasing research attention has been given to understanding of youth online activism, and its possible political connotations. Of particular interest is a question about the connections between online activities and offline political engagement among the youth. In order to address this issue, the present study explored the pattern of Internet use according to the level of youth offline political engagement. For this purpose, using a three-wave longitudinal data, a sample of 500 Swedish adolescents was classified into four groups, based on the level of their offline political engagement, i.e. active, standby, unengaged, and disillusioned. The four groups were then compared on various types of online activism, such as social/interactional, creative, informational, and entertainment-oriented forms of Internet use. Overall, the results showed that higher offline political engagement was related to elevated levels of Internet use in seeking news and information as well as generating online content. In particular, youth in the active and standby groups reported significantly higher levels of informational forms of Internet use than those in the unengaged and disillusioned groups. In addition, youth in the active group showed significantly higher levels of creative forms of Internet use than those in the remaining groups. The political relevance of these two types of online activism is discussed in light of youth psychological empowerment.
