SMPA Assistant Professor Catie Bailard recently published articles in two scholarly journals. Both articles reflect her primary academic focus: the intersection of politics and information and communication technologies.

Published in the Journal of Communication, Bailard's first article, “A Field Experiment on the Internet’s Effect in an African Election: Savvier Citizens, Disaffected Voters, or Both,” explores a field experiment she conducted in Tanzania during its 2010 presidential election to determine whether Internet use influenced a person's perceptions of election fairness.  Not only did her findings reveal that the Internet negatively influenced these perceptions, but the study also found that, in this case, more critical Internet users became less likely to vote at all.

Her second article, “Testing the Internet’s Effect on Democratic Satisfaction: A Multi-Methodological, Cross-National Approach,” appears in the Journal of Information Technology & Politics. The article presents the results from a field experiment she conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina testing the relationship between Internet use and satisfaction with how democracy functions in the countries.  The findings of the study demonstrate the Internet has a considerable influence on democratic satisfaction.  Whereas the Internet leads to enhanced satisfaction in strong democracies, it is associated with dissatisfaction in countries with weak democratic practices.