Gen Z in Politics : The influence of Socia Media's political content on first-time voters' political participation in 2022 Philippine Presidential Elections
Loading...
Date
2023
Authors
Christine Joy S. Corpuz
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Social media is critical in providing information to the public, especially the youth. Researchers, Solmaz and Ozkan (2015) revealed that internet usage has rapidly increased in the last decade. Moreover, a study proves that social media is a concept that can significantly develop youth engagement toward active citizenship (Kahne & Middaugh, 2012). Therefore, development communication practitioners play a crucial role in providing relevant, accurate, and timely information.
This study's main goal was to determine how political posts on social media affected first-time voters' political participation in the 2022 National Elections. To evaluate the level of exposure and responses to political posts, as well as how political content influences first-time voters, it is necessary to gather respondents' sociodemographic profiles and communication attributes. This study is quantitative and makes use of purposive sampling. The participants were one hundred first- time voters in the 2022 National Presidential Elections from the CLSU Bachelor of Science in Development Communication. The main source for the study was an online survey questionnaire. Then it utilized statistical data analysis to search for significant findings.
Overall findings indicate that respondents frequently encounter political information on the Internet. Also, participants' reactions to electoral information on social media vary. They frequently respond to posts and follow pages promoting the presidential candidate they favor but rarely share, repost, comment, or save political content. Nevertheless, they seldom refute political misinformation by commenting on someone's post but consistently report inaccurate political information. They also do not unfriend, unfollow, or block those who back different presidential candidates. Finally, most respondents agreed on political posts influencing their voting behavior.
The existence of political posts online increases Gen Z's political participation. This researcher's findings support Hermans & Vergeer's (2013) claim that e-campaigning increases the visibility and interaction between politicians and the public. Moreover, supporting Bode and Dalrymple's (2016) statement that the exposure occurrence to electoral postings depends on the political accounts they followed, as online characteristics of friends and acquaintances may predict respondents' exposure to political content. Likewise, the researcher concludes that access to social media influences voting behavior, debunking Chan's (2016) argument that using social media as a news source has no impact on people's political participation. Finally, research supports the idea that having access to social media influences voters' choices. Thus, it relates to the claim that Facebook significantly impacted the electoral process through the influence of politicians' platforms. However, they were not persuaded to support a particular political candidate by posting and sharing political content and ideas (De Vera et al., 2017).