Measuring social media use and political engagement among young adults: Psychometric properties and theoretical validity of research tool

Koon Lin WONG, Beata KRZYWOSZ-RYNKIEWICZ, Keith Ki CHAN

Research output: Contribution to conferencePapers

Abstract

The widespread use of modern technology by young people means that their socialization takes place largely online, mainly on social networking sites. This includes political and civic socialization. Social media and political participation questionnaire is used to measure young adults on-line citizenship activity. Tool consists of 65 questions evaluating four constructs. Two of them measure the understanding of (1) digital citizenship and (2) media literacy. Two of them measure young people citizenship activity (3) online and (4) relationship between online and offline participation. The aim of the study was preliminary tool validation - its psychometric properties and verify theoretical (structure and content of factors). One hundred ninety-one students (78% female) from Poland (82%) and Hong Kong (18%) aged 19-26 studying different disciplines (psychology, education, computer science, philology, art) participated in the study. The preliminary results indicated that the internal consistency of these scales, and young people understand digital citizenship mostly as respect for digital ethics, participating in social actions and getting global awareness. Young people understand media literacy as attitudes to rules and regulations, be critical and safe and getting information. Young people manifest three groups of digital social engagement as participating in civic actions, building relationship and community and sharing opinions. The findings also revealed that the relationships between participation online and offline are statistical significance. The inter-correlations between digital social engagement, media literacy, digital citizenship and well-being as well as their personal/social/cultural determines need to be will explored in a multi-country youth study. Copyright © 2022 17th European Congress of Psychology.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2022
Event17th European Congress of Psychology: "Psychology as the Hub Science: Opportunities & Responsibility" - Ljubljana, Slovenia
Duration: 05 Jul 202208 Jul 2022
https://www.ecp2022.eu/

Conference

Conference17th European Congress of Psychology: "Psychology as the Hub Science: Opportunities & Responsibility"
Abbreviated titleECP 2022
Country/TerritorySlovenia
CityLjubljana
Period05/07/2208/07/22
Internet address

Citation

Wong, L. K. L., Krzywosz-Rynkiewicz, B., & Chan, K. K. (2022, July). Measuring social media use and political engagement among young adults: Psychometric properties and theoretical validity of research tool. Symposium conducted at the 17th European Congress of Psychology: Psychology as the Hub Science: Opportunities & Responsibility, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

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