Political and Technology Efficacy among Millennials
Date
2013-05
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Political participation is a vital aspect of the American democratic process.
Although the Millennial generation is the future of our country, young adults have
traditionally been the least engaged age group. Theories such as the Civic
Volunteerism model have attributed the participation disparity to the lack of benefits
that young people receive from the political system involvement. Others have cited the
exclusion of youths from political campaigns as a contributor to disengagement.
However, in the past decade, the percentage of youth voters has raised to around 50
percent in tandem with social-media integrated political campaigns that successfully
targeted Millennials. As such, this study analyzes how young adults are using new
technology and social media to engage with politics, and how their online participation
affects their political behavior offline. Specifically, it looks at how social media
relationships between a user and an acquaintance and a user and an official account
relate to offline participation. Results reinforce previous findings that political social
media use is associated with political attention and in-person political discussion.
Results also suggest a relationship between offline participation and information
seeking after viewing social media posts. Implications and directions for future
research are discussed.