Teenyboppers and online politics

YUP - I used Teenyboppers AGAIN! How could I not? I mean, they were the subjects of a study done on the impact of digital literacy on online participation in politics in the article "Can media literacy education increase digital engagement in politics?"

And the short answer is YES. When teenyboppers (defined by me as the 12 - 22 crowd lol), have been instructed and practiced digital literacy in school, they are more likely to participate in politics online. On the contrary, if they are not given this instruction they are less likely to participate politically in the two forms of participation as defined by the authors. 

OPP (there it is AGAIN! Yeah, you know me!) - Online Participatory Politics: think of when you disagree with a law or a bill and you post about it and give your opinion on why that law/bill is a bad idea. You aim is to influence your peers to agree with you. 

TPP - Targeted Political Pressure: when you find out a restaurant/business has been underpaying their employees, so you put them on blast on your socials, make it public, and ask others to share so the business feels the SHAME of the community for what they have done! 

Personally, I think our rising teenyboppers are great candidates for real change in our country, especially using their socials to get their message out, but not if we don't give them the tools to knowledgably navigate the process of vetting online content, and recognizing when something is "click-bait". 

I plan on making more of a commitment next school year teaching my students about digital citizenship. They are soon to be teenyboppers and could use this guidance for sure. 

Kahne, & Bowyer, B. (2019). Can media literacy education increase digital engagement in politics? Journal of Educational Media : the Journal of the Educational Television Association, 44(2), 211–224. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2019.1601108