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[music playing] When you look at participation,
political participation, what does that mean?
I mean, there's the obvious kind, going to the voting booth
and pulling the lever.
There are more subtle, and some would say less significant,
ways of participating politically,
whether that means simply 'liking' something on Facebook,
sharing something on Twitter.
or maybe even more active ways, such as giving money,
donating time, or doing something outside
of the voting booth that does qualify
as some political activity.
Certainly for the younger generation there's initially
going to be more of an inclination to take part
in those online participation,
online political participation activities,
that might not register with us with being very active,
whether it's simply sharing something
through a social network site or whatnot.
I think the bigger question is something
that researchers are still trying to unravel is how does
that kind of, more subtle, more simple,
more base-level participation through social networks
and that kind of media, translate later down the road
to greater activity in the voting booth,
where it ultimately matters.
What our research points to is that a preference
for online media does seem to indicate a higher kind
of engagement in all kinds of political participation,
voting as well as other forms that happen online.
So that's interesting and significant
and what's especially important here is that we found
that this preference not only matters, but this preference
for online media matters especially for young adults.
That's the key here, we need to then untangle,
what are the ramifications of this as we try
to study the relationship between social media
and politics in the digital age.
So maybe it's that because digital media tend
to be more interactive, tend to offer more opportunity
for an active kind of participation with the news,
perhaps, it is associated and facilitates a certain kind
of activity away from the news, in relation to politics
and I think that's what's pretty interesting about this.
As media become more digitized and as media and as more
and more of our news consumption goes towards these digital
platforms, I think the question becomes: how do young adults,
the current voters and the future voters of America,
how do they relate to news depending
on how they receive it?
So, which kind of channel, and what kind of format,
whether it comes through more social or traditional channels
and I think for a campaign the big question is,
if they're trying to reach out to young people,
perhaps then there may be less time spent on traditional forms
of news and campaigning and so forth and more emphasis
on what they can do with digital delivery of messages,
getting messages in viral,social,
and more network channels as opposed to going
through the more traditional press to get the message out,
especially if they're trying to reach young people.