Digital Civic Engagement and Youth Participation: Hungarian LIS Students’ Perspective of Political Information

Abstract

Objective. The research seeks to understand, how Hungarian LIS students use social media as an avenue to express their democratic actions and how social media political information affects the youth’s trust and judgement when interacting with their close family and friends online. Methods. The study employed a quantitative approach to determine the social media engagement of the participants with close family and friends. Convenience sampling was applied in this study (Students of Library and Information Science, University, Hungary), and an online questionnaire was sent to all the potential participants (to 197 students). Results. A total of 43% participated in this research. The youth give a high level of trust to their family members and close friends even if they share, post, like, or comment on something that is different from their point-of-view in social media. Moreover, the youth have a low level of judgement towards family and close friends. Conclusions. Political participation among youth is voluntary and engagement with political information in social media is rare/low.