On/off(line), patterns of party membership in digital environments. Insights from the Italian case

Digital technologies are offering a novel environment for political activities and, more specifically, for interactions between citizens and political actors. The literature on these topics is burgeoning (Barbera et al. 2021; Dommett et al. 2021a; Gerbaudo 2018). On the one hand, studies of political communication emphasize the changing nature of election campaigns and the reshaped relationship between leaders and supporters (Schäfer 2021; Dommett and Temple 2018; Chadwick and Stromer-Galley 2016), while on the other hand the literature on political parties examines in more detail the organizational implications of such digital shift (Dommett et al. 2021b; Dommett et al. 2021c). Against this backdrop, the paper intends to investigate the opinions and participatory attitudes of party members towards the new digital participation opportunities that their party organizations provide. To do so, we rely on original individual survey data. More specifically, we will use data derived from a survey administered to Democratic Party members in Italy at the beginning of 2022 (about 4,000 respondents). Precisely, we aim at identifying party members profiles according to their (degree of) digital activities, by controlling for variables such as: length of the membership, levels of intra-party activism, evaluation of intra-party democracy. Moreover, we will investigate the changing relationship between members and their party organizations in the new digital ecosystem.