RT for Trump, Fav for Clinton

LIS 3201-Research and Data AnalysisTeam 1 Hayden Miller, Kelly Koeppel, Spencer Lowy, Gabi Giuliano, Pablo Calderon, Zachary Viskovich

Problem Statement

Social media plays a huge role in informing the public on political information and updates. According to a study by Pew Research Center (2015) “young adults (ages 18 to 29) are the most likely to use social media – fully 90% do” (Perrin, 2015). Current knowledge of social media usage for gaining information on the presidential election is very limited. Our research will evaluate Florida State University undergraduate students’ use of social media for acquiring information and news on the 2016 presidential election.

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Purpose Significance

This study holds significance because more and more young voters are using social media as their main source for political information and updates. Social media users “cite breaking news as a major reason why they follow political figures on social media” (Anderson, 2015, p. 1). These social media applications are delivering political news faster than other forms of online media. 3

Presidential campaigns now incorporate the use of social media to inform voters on the candidate’s views and current endeavors. Boulianne (2015) states that “the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns have fueled interest in how social media might affect citizens’ participation in civic and political life” (p. 524). We will seek to gain an understanding of how students use social media for political purposes.

Research Questions

➢ RQ1: How do Florida State University students use social media applications to gain information and updates about the upcoming 2016 election?

➢ RQ2: Do Florida State University students prefer to use social media to acquire information and updates about the upcoming 2016 presidential election over traditional media, and why?

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Methods

➢ Our chosen research method was survey

➢ We performed volunteer sampling

○ Non-random sampling method

➢ We shared the link to our qualtrics survey on multiple FSU Facebook groups (Class of

2016, Class of 2017, and Class of 2018), emailed it to all of our class rosters (LIS3201,

PUR3000, DIG3118, COP2258, and COP4342), and posted flyers in the first floors of

Strozier, Dirac, and the Student Union. 5

Analysis (Demographics)

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Freshman by year, junior by credits

We received a total of 56 respondents to our survey.

Analysis (Demographics)

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There was an almost perfectly even distribution of respondents by political party affiliation.

Other: Independent, libertarian

Analysis (Findings/Results)

RQ1: How do Florida State University students use social media applications to gain information and updates about the upcoming 2016 election?

➢ Students prefer Facebook to gain election information over any other social media platform.

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Youtube, Reddit

Analysis(Findings/Results)

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RQ1: How do Florida State University students use social media applications to gain information and updates about the upcoming 2016 election?

➢ Majority of students check social media 2 or more times a day, and more than 75% of respondents claiming to check it 5 times or more per day.

Analysis (Findings/Results)

While students DO use social media to gain political information, they DO NOT like to discuss their personal views on that platform.

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Analysis (Findings/Results)

RQ2: Do Florida State University students prefer to use social media to acquire information and updates about the upcoming 2016 presidential election over traditional media, and why?

➢ 84% of respondents said that they did use social media for political updates, BUT it wasn’t the main source for many.

○ Many students stated that they still rely on news websites and television.

➢ Students who do use social media stated that it presents the most up-to-date presidential election information.

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Analysis (Findings/Results)

RQ2: Do Florida State University students prefer to use social media to acquire information and updates about the upcoming 2016 presidential election over traditional media, and why?

➢ Social media is seen as a trustworthy source by most of the respondents, but they specified that they only trusted articles from specific newspaper accounts or other credible sources. 12

10. Do you use social media to gain information and updates on the upcoming 2016 presidential election? Why or why not?

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“I use Snapchat for election results”

“I do not trust tv, newspapers, and other mass media.”

“Social media has given the social world another way to keep up on debates.”

“no, all the candidates suck.”

“I don't use social media to learn about presidential debates”

“Not really, because it is extremely biased most of the time.”

17. Do you consider social media a trustworthy source for information and news on the 2016 presidential election? Why or why not?

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“It's a good indicator of the political climate; how voters are feeling. We hate Trump.”

“Depends on the source of the information, if it is a credible and well-known news source like CNN then I am more likely to trust its information”

“I don't trust social media for accurate news on the presidential election. Multiple times I have seen stories that are inaccurate, so I don't even read them anymore.”

Discussions/Implications

➢ In our literature review, we learned that Facebook and Twitter were considered the top social media sites for political discussion. Research done by Murthy “provides evidence of Twitter as part of a larger media ecology” (Murthy, 2015, p.828).

➢ We also found that most of our respondents have 3 or more social media accounts, which proves how widespread this media platform is. Social media’s “participatory character, particularly blogging, social networking and content sharing, has encouraged more people to be involved in political issues” (Lim, 2008).

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Conclusion

After conducting our research, we concluded that students at FSU..

➢ Only trust information on social media if it comes from a credible account

➢ Use social media because of its convenience and shortened versions of articles

➢ Do not prefer to discuss their own political opinions on social media.

➢ Still rely on other forms of media for political updates.

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Limitations/Future Study➢ We didn’t reach as many students as we had hoped. We should

have distributed the survey through more mediums to reach a higher number of respondents.

➢ We also received many short, vague responses to open ended questions(or no response at all)

○ This may have been because they were not interpreted correctly by the respondent

○ This may have been because the respondent was too lazy to fill in the extended response portion of the question

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Reflection

➢ Group communication was a big issue for us at the beginning of the semester

○ It was difficult for all 6 of us to meet outside of class because of our hectic college student schedules.

○ Divide and conquer was also not the best approach for assignments because it left them unorganized and unclear.

➢ But we managed to all get on the same page, and produce a solid final research project together as a team

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