The objective of this research project is to find out how students participate in politics nowadays – meaning what political participation means to them, whether and how they get involved, what motivates them and what might also prevent them from actively participating in politics. By gathering more information about their ways of obtaining news and how especially students discuss and pursue politics and current affairs, it is possible to understand better how young people can be approached and how they envision successful participation.
Students have historically initiated and inspired national liberation movements, political parties, as well as labor organizations and cultural groups. In some countries, they have succeeded in influencing governments and changing policies, for example with regard to equal opportunities in education and better learning conditions. Therefore, the question that repeatedly leads to discussions is whether and to what ex-tent young people today are political and what influences their engagement with politics. Students in particular represent a relevant group in this context, partly for the reason that it is likely that many individuals who will later take on relevant roles in public life will emerge from this group. In addition, it can be assumed that trends and media developments that are also important for politics and political organizations arise early on in the student environment.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
1.1 Research Objectives
1.2 Structure of Research
2 Interest of Students in Politics
2.1 Engagement of Students in Politics
2.2 Social Media and Politics
3 Research
3.1 Research Design
3.2 Interview Guideline
3.3 Pilot Test
4 Data Collection
4.1 Transcription
4.2 Coding Information
5 Analysis and Presentation of Results
5.1 Participation in Politics
5.2 Social Media and Politics
5.3 Reflection
6 Conclusion
Reference List
1 Introduction
Students have historically initiated and inspired national liberation movements, political parties, as well as labor organizations and cultural groups. In some countries, they have succeeded in influencing governments and changing policies for example with regard to equal opportunities in education and better learning conditions (Altbach, 1966, p. 175). Therefore, the question that repeatedly leads to discussions is whether and to what extent young people today are political and what influences their engagement with politics. Students in particular represent a relevant group in this context, partly for the reason that it is likely that many individuals who will later take on relevant roles in public life will emerge from this group. In addition, it can be assumed that trends and media developments that are also important for politics and political organizations arise early on in the student environment (Knopke et al., 2017, p. 6).
1.1 Research Objectives
The objective of this research project is to find out how students participate in politics nowadays – meaning what political participation means to them, whether and how they get involved, what motivates them and what might also prevent them from actively participating in politics. By gathering more information about their ways of obtaining news and how especially students discuss and pursue politics and current affairs, it is possible to understand better how young people can be approached and how they envision successful participation.
In addition, the research is intended to examine whether and how social media affects students' political participation in politics. This is particularly relevant as the various channels through which information is gathered or shared have changed in recent decades due to the creation of new social networks and online media. Therefore, one of the objectives is to find out whether social media influences students’ participation in politics and how students nowadays encounter political issues online.
1.2 Structure of Research
Initially, existing literature on the topic will be analyzed in order to present the background of the connection between students, politics and social media as well as the current status of research. Subsequently, the research method is explained and the reasons for applying a qualitative research method to this topic are elaborated upon, compared to the possibility of applying a quantitative method. Afterwards, an overview of the exact procedure of the research follows: The development of the interview guide is explained and the results of a test interview are used to finalize the guide. Following on from this, interview participants are selected and interviewed and the results are transcribed. Afterwards, the transcripts will be analyzed and summarized using the coding method.
2 Interest of Students in Politics
In recent decades, the impression has been created in society that young people including students have comparatively less political knowledge and a pronounced lack of interest in politics. Compared to older adults, they show their political commitment comparatively less, for example, by getting less involved in parties and not joining such organizations (Henn & Foard, 2014, p. 360f.). However, research studies and contemporary literature suggest that youth today may not be less political than in the past, but perhaps politically different from previous generations.
In fact, there is a growing interest in politics outside of established parties, and increasingly more young adults are showing an interest in politics. Results of the latest Shell Youth Study from 2019 support this thesis: In the study, 8% of young people describe themselves as strongly interested, and a further 33% see themselves as interested – thus the results are significantly higher than those of 2002, 2006 and 2010 (Albert et al., 2019, p. 14). According to the results of another research project conducted by the Leibniz Institute for Media Research together with other project partners and the German Press Agency, it is important for the majority of teenagers and young adults to be up to date and to actively inform themselves about the news. The social component of news also plays an important role here, as being informed also means being able to take part in conversations and integrate oneself (Wunderlich, 2021). However, the results of both studies do not refer only to students, but it was found that there is a difference between the interest of young people with a lower and a higher level of education, as well as between men and women.
2.1 Engagement of Students in Politics
However, despite the students' political thinking and interest, it does not necessarily imply a direct political commitment. Meaning that although students are not apolitical, they are not very comfortable with the standard forms of engagement (Knopke et al., 2017, p. 7). Results of a study conducted in the United Kingdom, for example, show that young people are indeed interested in politics, although they feel that there are relatively few opportunities for them to engage effectively in formal political life (Henn & Foard, 2014, p. 360f.).
On the one hand, the reason for this is that students often perceive politics as something very abstract and intangible, and the subject is sometimes rather negatively associated for them, as they see the entire construct not representative for them (Henn & Foard, 2014, p. 366). On the other hand, this is also due to the fact that students tend to assess their possibilities rather poorly with regard to the question of politicization in the direction of engagement. Moreover, they do not experience themselves as a powerful community and reject radicalism (Knopke et al., 2017, p. 7). Another factor is that in the past, students wanted to describe themselves through involvement in a particular youth party, such as the Young Democrats or the Young Socialists, which distinguished themselves by addressing different political issues. But this differentiation as the basis of a political self-description is no longer comprehensible to current students. They do not consider it relevant to find the ideologically suitable organization for themselves and prefer a heterogeneous mix of political attitudes (Knopke et al., 2017, p. 25).
Therefore, there is no single orientation of students towards politics, and students are diverse in their political orientation and engage with a wide range of issues (Henn & Foard, 2014, p. 373). Their level of political engagement is also often linked to their background and circumstances. This means, for example, that students sometimes lack the time factor or the money factor to engage in politics to the extent they would like to (Knopke et al., 2017, p. 10).
2.2 Social Media and Politics
In recent years, one important issue that has been in constant change is the way students receive, share, and discuss politics and current news. In this context, a shift can be seen from traditional media to the associated online offerings (Knopke et. al, 2017, p. 13). The rise in the reach of social media as a news source is particularly striking: 56 percent of participants aged 18 to 24 in the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2020 are already using this platform as a source of news. This represents an increase of six percentage points compared to the previous year 2019 (Hasebrik & Hölig, 2020, p. 6). Reasons for the rapid increase include for example the speed of the Internet and its independence in terms of time and space.
Of particular interest in this context is therefore that social networks are gradually losing their original function, which means that networking with friends and staying in touch are increasingly becoming secondary. In the meantime, social media are frequently used for other purposes, such as the consumption of information and political news (Knopke et al., 2017, p. 13).
However, although social media are increasingly being used as a source of news, it can be seen that only a comparatively small proportion of students in Germany actively participate in news reporting, with only eleven percent regularly sharing news articles on social media and only ten percent commenting on them (Hasebrik & Hölig, 2020, p. 57).
Another important finding is that students still have the greatest trust in traditional media, such as information from television news from the public media or also traditional print media and broadcasting channels (Albert et al., 2019, p. 15). Exemplary of this are the preferred news sources of young people during the Corona pandemic. After all, information from scientists, doctors and experts were considered to be the most trustworthy overall, while social media as a news source were regarded as less credible (Hasebrik & Hölig, 2020, p. 9f.).
In summary, while more and more young people are using social media to inform themselves about political news, their trust in the source and also their interaction with political issues on the networks is generally low.
3 Research
This study intends to examine the extent to which students in particular are interested in politics and how they understand, consume and also share it with each other. Most studies that currently exist refer to young people and although they differentiate between different levels of education in their research, they do not examine whether there are differences in the types of education themselves and what these differences can be attributed to.
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