ABSTRACT

This study investigates the predictors of adolescents’ political cynicism in the social media environment. Given that social media are one of the main sources of information for many young people today, it is crucial to investigate how and in which ways social media use is associated with political cynicism. To that aim, we use data from computer-assisted personal interviews of N = 1,061 adolescents between 14 and 19 years in Germany. Our findings reveal that relative information-oriented social media use is related to lower political cynicism, while exposure to extremist political content on social media predicts higher levels of political cynicism. Furthermore, although self-perceived online media literacy is negatively associated with political cynicism, it does not moderate the relationship between political cynicism and relative information-oriented social media use or exposure to extremist content. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

摘要

本研究调查了社交媒体环境中青少年政治犬儒主义的预测因素。鉴于社交媒体是当今许多年轻人的主要信息来源之一，调查社交媒体使用如何以及以何种方式与政治犬儒主义相关是至关重要的。为此，我们使用来自N的计算机辅助个人访谈的数据= 德国 1,061 名 14 至 19 岁的青少年。我们的研究结果表明，相对以信息为导向的社交媒体使用与较低的政治犬儒主义有关，而在社交媒体上接触极端主义政治内容则预示着较高的政治犬儒主义水平。此外，尽管自我感知的网络媒体素养与政治犬儒主义呈负相关，但它并不能缓和政治犬儒主义与相对信息导向的社交媒体使用或接触极端主义内容之间的关系。我们讨论了这些发现的理论和实践意义。