Participation and Attitudes: Social Media and the Youth of Southeast Europe

• In Event: Activism, Protest and Regime Responses in post-Communist Eurasia

Abstract

Civic engagement, manifested as participatory behavior and political trust, is a defining feature of successful democratic societies. The reproduction of this profile is of critical importance everywhere in the democratic world, spawning academic interest in the fate of youth participatory trends. Social media holds the potential to encourage more political participation and shape attitudes that are supportive of democracy; yet may also serve as a conduit for anti-democratic forces. We explore the impact of social media on political behavior and attitudes in 10 countries in Southeast Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and the seven states from the former Yugoslavia.
We employ national survey data from youth (ages 14-29) in 10 Southeast European countries to evaluate the impact of different media forms on aspects of political engagement: political participation, political trust, and attitudes toward democracy. Our use of Structural Equation Models allows us to isolate independent effects. We breakdown media mediums along the lines of traditional and digital as well as asymmetric and interactive.
Our findings show that any form of media consumption contributes to political participation and that political interest is an important moderating variable. We further find that traditional media use correlates positively with political trust. However, youth who are less tolerant are more likely to consume traditional media and those more prone to violence are less likely to rely on digital media for their information. Finally, although the sample is exclusively young people, we find important differences in the relationship between media and political engagement based on categories within the age range in our sample. This finding suggests that socialization is a dynamic process across age.

Authors

• Paul E. Sum, University of North Dakota

• Gabriel Badescu