Political use of Facebook: Exploring the political consciousness of CAS-UPM students.

Abstract

In almost every society, the role of young people in nation-building is a formidable one. In the Philippines, a clear manifestation of this social responsibility was seen from the generation of Emilio Jacinto within the Katipunan to the First Quarter Storm movement in 1970s which ignited the mass movement in providing concrete resistance against the dictator during Martial Law. From an eyeball observation, the young people of today will be the citizens of the future simply because they will inherit the political and social system. They will assume the leadership and democratic administration of the country and society as civil servants, elected public officials, or active civil society personalities in the mass organizations—all working for the betterment of society. In this simple relationship, one cannot disregard the contribution of behavioralist approach in emphasizing and analyzing the importance of political socialization of Filipino youth as a means to integrate this young generation to the political arena of collective and social life. As regards the process of political socialization, there are a lot of responsible agents such as the family, school, church or religion, and media. In light of these social facts, this study would like to explore the interplay between (new) media and politics in general with respect to the experiences of youth. A more direct question where this material would like to focus is ‘how the use of social media, especially Facebook, affects the political consciousness of the youth’. The results found out that there is a significant relationship between political use of Facebook and political consciousness. However, attitudes toward Facebook do not necessarily translate to online or offline participation which are crucial elements in the fruition of a genuine public sphere. Students may be connected to each other but such connection does not translate into meaningful interaction and collective participation.