The Civic Network:A comparative study of the use of social media for enhancing young people’s political engagement

Posted on 8 October 2012

The Spencer Foundation based in Chicago, USA, is funding a $312,000 two year comparative research project examining the potential influence of social media upon the political values and behaviour of young people in the UK, Australia and the USA.

Brian Loader (SATSU, University of York) will be working with Ariadne Vromen (University of Sydney) and Mike Xenos (University of Wisconsin at Madison) to investigate whether new attitudes and styles of politics are manifesting themselves through the use of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube by young citizens. The research team are all members of the ‘Networking Young Citizens’ study group supported by the WUN.