LALLABBAN, Kashmir
12-EXCELLENCE
Humanities and Social Sciences
Student
Activism
in
the
Philippines: The Role of Social
Media
in
the
Political
Participation of Young Adults
DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD_D
Keywords: Political participation, social
media, student activism
INTRODUCTION
Recently, reports of Filipino college
students joining leftist groups have circulated
the news scene and various arguments about
the inappropriateness of students’ political
actions in the form of protest have ensued.
(Hernando-Malipot, 2019) However, it is
important to remember that in a vastly
democratic country like the Philippines,
student activism plays a prevalent role in
fostering political and social transformation.
(Bernardo & Baranovich, 2016) Moreover, the
book By Any Media Necessary: The New
Youth Activism (Jenkins, et.al., 2018), tackled
the development of digital media and
explained how this particular phenomenon
changes the frequent image of young adults as
uninterested in political life, ill-informed about
current affairs, and unwilling to register and
vote.
The continuous development of social
media has resulted to it being a foundation of
society and its members’ day-to-day activities.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter,
Tumblr and Snapchat are now used and
supported by the majority. (Selwyn & Stirling,
2015) Social media allows us to access various
information and provides opportunities to use
it in different ways. (Andersen, et.al., 2016) In
a study by Diehl, Weeks, and de Zuñiga
(2015), it was stated that social media is more
often used for entertainment purposes like
interacting with friends. On the other hand,
Boulianne and Theocharis (2017) tackled the
decline of the participation of young adults in
political and civic life due to political
estrangement in the past years and described
social media as a way to increase it again. This
is due to the fact that the majority of the
population of social media users is made up of
young adults, making them primary receivers
of new technology and information which are
vital to the formation of their political
identities and later on, their political
participation.
In the study Political News in the
News Feed: Learning Politics from Social
Media (Bode, 2015), the researchers discussed
social media as a means to get political
information, stating that political information
and social media are more directly
interconnected than social media and political
behaviour. However, their results state that
while political information can be acquired
through Facebook and Twitter, majority of the
population do not always realize it. But still
according to Wolfsfeld, Yarchi, and
Samuel-Azran (2015), individuals with diverse
political repertoires, both traditional and
digital, have an increased level of political
knowledge, efficacy, and participation.
Several studies have tackled the media
activities of young adults and its effects on
their political participation. However, the
findings remain incoherent due to varied
impressions of political participation and
media use. (Fu, et.al., 2016) So, in a study
conducted by Lee, Chen and Chan (2016) a
theoretical model was used to investigate
collective action, digital, and personalized
action participation as different forms of
political participation induced via social media
usage. But their findings suggest that these
actions of political engagement are still
affected by other social psychological factors.
Moreover, the current studies which tackle the
relationship of social media usage and political
participation mostly give attention varied
kinds of activities which also contribute to the
disjointedness of the data available.
Given that, the problems of the study
that the researcher aims to fulfill and give
solutions to are:
1.) What are the social media
activities that young adults engage
in?
2.) What social relationships are they
able to form using these social
media activities?
3.) How do these social media
activities influence their levels of
political participation?
● Collective action
● Digital
● Personalized
Ha: There is a positive relationship between
young adults’ social media usage and their
political engagement.
Ho: There is a negative relationship between
young adults’ social media usage and their
political engagement.
This study aims to focus on the current
state of student activism in the Philippines and
how it is influenced by the social media usage
of young Filipinos. In a dynamic world, where
technology will only continue to evolve, a
deeper understanding of the different effects of
social media on today’s generation will offer a
chance to utilize its advantages and minimize
its disadvantages.
The results of this would be beneficial
to the following groups in society: [1] Young
Adults: Being the main focus of the study,
young adults are the primary benefactors of
the results. Acquiring information on how
much impact they have on society will
empower them to use social media to be the
main agents of change in this country. [2]
Parents: As the youth’s initial guide to society,
parents must be able to know how to control
and support their children in their social media
activities as it is essential to forming their
beliefs and values which they develop early
on. [3] Educators: Social media plays a vital
role in the development of young adults, as
educators understanding how to use social
media in shaping the characters of their
students would ensure effective education. [4]
Future Researchers: Even with the vast
collection of studies and information regarding
social media and youth political participation,
future researchers still need more focused
investigations to fill in the gaps of the
currently disjointed findings.
The scope of this study includes
identifying the social media activities which
young adults engage in and investigating it as
a factor in identifying the levels of the
participants’ political participation in terms of
collective, digital, and personalized action.
However, the results would look more closely
on its effects toward student activism, and how
social media also influences different social
relationships, which in turn, also predict levels
of political participation, particularly those
which focus on student activism. The
respondents will be comprised of eligible
voters, ages 18- 25 who come from different
state universities across Metro Manila with
rules which allow students to participate in
protest movements, may it be online or offline.
The study will not tackle the acquisition of
political information through various social
media platforms, and the investigation will not
include the social media activities of
professors, and members of the university’s
administration. Lastly, this study will not focus
on specific protest and election events which
have occurred in the Philippines.