Who Posts? Political & Social Beliefs of Latin American Youth & Online Activity

• In Event: Poster Session: Political Communication

Abstract

Adolescence has long been recognized as a crucial period in political socialization and civic development, because the political attitudes and experiences of young people influence their political behaviors, opinions, and attitudes as adults. As our media landscape has changed, so have the ways in which youth receive and, increasingly, create political media. In Latin America, many scholars see this shift as an opportunity for youth to create their own political conceptions of the world and to participate more readily in activism and advocacy, but the internet could also be a space for those with toxic views of race/ethnicity, gender, and sexuality to promote these perspectives and, thus, create a toxic online environment. In this study we seek to understand both what Latin American youth believe about race/ethnicity, gender, and sexuality and how those beliefs are related to participation in online and in-person social and political conversations.

Using the 2016 ICCS dataset, we identify what 25,000 young people from five Latin American countries believe about the rights and societal roles of women and sexual and racial/ethnic minorities, and how these beliefs are related to their internet use and access and political engagement online and in-person. Using latent class analysis of survey items measuring youth beliefs about these three areas, we identified a 6-class solution with good model fit. The Liberal class (33%) held permissive views on all three issues. Four of the classes (Conservative - Gender & Racism/Xenophobia, 11%; Conservative - Gender & Sexuality, 12%; Conservative - Sexuality, 6%; Conservative - Women, 33%) reflected beliefs in equal rights for all, with conservative beliefs about societal roles of individuals in one or more of those groups. A small subset of the population was willing to be openly anti-rights about at least one of these three groups (Openly Anti-Rights, 4%).

The Liberal and Conservative - Sexuality classes were more likely to talk about political issues at home with their parents, while the Conservative - Gender & Sexuality, Conservative - Gender & Racism/Xenophobia, and Openly Anti-Rights classes were more likely to talk about these issues with their friends. In the Liberal and Conservative - Women classes, respondents were more likely to seek information on the internet about political or social issues. The three most conservative classes (Conservative - Gender & Sexuality, Conservative - Gender & Racism/Xenophobia, and Openly Anti-Rights) were more likely to create content about political or social issues online. These results suggest that the propensity for individuals in these latent belief classes to discuss social and political views in person differs from their propensities to participate in similar online discussions. Importantly, individuals with the most conservative views were most likely to contribute to online social and political discussions, while seeking information on the internet was predictive of liberal class membership. This is important empirical evidence that young people with the most negative views about women and racial/ethnic and sexual minorities produced social and political online content at a higher rate, which could contribute to online toxicity.

Authors

• Kelly Siegel-Stechler, Johns Hopkins University

• David McKinney, Johns Hopkins University