Social media and youth political engagement: Preaching to the converted or providing a new voice for youth?

Abstract

Amidst concern about declining youth political engagement, it is often suggested that social media can provide a solution to this challenge. In this article, however, we argue that these online tools have not thus far mobilised a new audience to become engaged in either institution-oriented activities or political expression. Instead, we found that some young people are far more engaged in using social media for political purposes than others, and that a substantial proportion of young adults never use social media for this purpose. Using latent class analysis (LCA) of a unique web survey of young Britons aged 22-29, we show that the principal driver of online political engagement is political interest (even after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics). On this basis, we conclude that social media may be providing a new outlet for some young adults; it is not re-engaging the young adults who have already lost interest in politics.

The Unbearable Lightness of Digital Activism: The Effect of Gender on Social Activist Participation Level of University Students

“…Existing literature reviewed for the study but any questionnaire was not applied literally. While questionnaire preparing, studies benefited from are Dordevic and Zezelj (2016), Keating and Melis (2017), Metzger, Erete, Barton and Lewis (2015) and Pritzker, Springer and McBride (2012) for the survey. The preliminary survey was made for the efficiency of the content and the sufficiency for the analysis on ten students and then questionnaire was applied to 320 students using convenience sampling willingly participated from different faculties.…”

“…During this life-stage, young citizens have less of the resources (time, money or mental energy) that are believed to be prerequisites to political engagement (Verba, Schlozman and Brady 1995). However, as online participation requires fewer resources (financial or otherwise), it has been suggested that these online tools could help to compensate for the resource limitations that young adults face and provide a low-cost site for engagement (Keating and Melis 2017). In the case of young people, the creative effect of the Internet is more prominent.…”

Data Activism: Reviving, Extending and Upgrading Critical Citizenship Education and Consumer Rights Movements

“…It is observed that European formal citizenship education does not promote civic activism (Biesta, 2009). In the same vein, Ribeiro and her colleagues (2012, p. 32) On the other hand, it is noteworthy to see that unlike the common sense view, social media use does not boost political engagement, as those using social media for political purposes are the ones that are already political in their real lives (Keating & Melis, 2017). Kara's (2018, p. 172) findings are even more pessimistic: "students indicated that they do not prefer to engage in political activities online because of emotional disturbance, pressure from society, and a fear of affecting their future lives in a negative way. "…”

Channels of participation: Political participant types and personality

“…Some scholars only report engaged and disengaged participators [ 23 , 24 ], others all-round activists, high-voting engaged, mainstream and disengaged participants [ 22 , 41 ], or agitators, outsiders, activists, and conventionals [ 16 ]. A study on youth online participation identifies engagers and non-engagers [ 42 ].…”

“…Links have been established between age, socio-economic status, education, and political knowledge [ 16 , 19 , 23 , 41 ]. Furthermore, recent research suggests that political interest appears to be the principal driver for youth engagement [ 42 ]. Factors beyond the traditional socio-economic model plus political involvement have not been studied in relation to participant typologies yet.…”