MAKING SENSE OF DEMOCRACY, 147 CHARACTERS AT A TIME: AN INVESTIGATION OF HIGH SCHOOLERS' ABILITY TO MAKE SENSE OF POLITICAL MESSAGES PRESENTED VIA TWITTER

Abstract

Social media’s role in our society is difficult to overstate as it has become embedded in our daily lives as an efficient and convenient vehicle for communication and socialization. In recent years, social media has also become a power broker in the civic and political arena as politicians, elected officials, and citizens use sites like Twitter to discuss and debate the issues of the day, and in some cases organize supporters for civic and political action. Given the increased role of social media sites like Twitter and its prevalence among young people, it is critical for educators to understand how young people make sense of these political messages. This descriptive study seeks to flesh out how high school students in my American history course make sense of political messages they are exposed to during the 2016 presidential election. Ultimately, the results from this study suggest that students are drawn to the more controversial and salacious tweets posted by presidential candidates. Results also suggest that students largely operated in an echo chamber as they tended to focus more on the tweets of the candidate which shared their views and were much less forgiving of the opposing candidate. Finally, students reported that they were skeptical of the value of the information found on social media sites like Twitter.