Social Media, Influencers and Political Engagement of the Youth

The era of social media networks has deeply affected the relationship political content, entertainment and political participation. While research has shown that social media use fosters political engagement, we still observe widespread low political participation, even among the young, who use social media most extensively. To increase participation, governments and politicians have taken advantage of social media influencers (and their huge resonance on social media) to spread political messages targeting young audiences. As political scientists, we lack an understanding of the real effect that these messages have on people’s political identity, preferences and behaviors, both online and offline. In this work, I aim at shedding light on the role that political content on social media, channeled through non-political actors, has in shaping young adults’ political identity, attitudes and their conception of political activism. Taking advantage of the European Elections, I use an experimental setting to test the effects of the language used and para-social relationships established by social media personalities on their pages. I argue that this work will contribute to the understanding of how social media, with their ingrained economic, political and psychological incentives, affect the way young people socialize themselves into the political process and will help us to predict the future of political engagement and participation, both in the virtual and real world.