Social Media | Graphic by Bethany Althauser | The Wright State Guardian
By Katelyn O’Connell
Professor of Political Science Dr. Lee Hannah and his Campaigns and Elections class administered a survey to 384 students at Wright State University. The survey offers a glimpse into students’ political leanings and intentions ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Student Katelyn O’Connell explores how students consume election news, finding a growing reliance on social media for information and a distinct preference for visual content over traditional text-based formats.
The survey
There are so many more ways to consume news now than there was even a decade ago. The newest and in my opinion most interesting new way to view the news is through social media platforms.
News stations and reporters are coming to social media to share news stories in shortened segments of their full stories in the print and television media spaces. There is also quite a bit of untrue and false information being spread on social media sites along with true stories in a shortened and more digestible format.
This study aims to examine the percentage of students surveyed at Wright State who consume news through social media platforms. Additionally, the study will explore whether the Wright State student sample has a preferred social media platform for receiving news.
Our class created a survey that included a range of questions about demographics, vote choice, political ideology, and media consumption habits. We administered the survey over two days during our regular class sessions on Tuesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 12:20 p.m.
Students completed paper surveys, and we provided QR codes for those who preferred to respond later. We listed anticipated media sources in the survey, along with an "other" option for any sources not included. Respondents rated each media source using a scale of never, rarely, sometimes, or often.
Results
Around 20-30% of the students sampled use social media to get their news on a basis described as “often”. If we add the people who said that they sometimes get news from social media that is around another 20%.
So almost half of the students sampled in the survey said they sometimes or often get their news from a social media platform. That is not an insignificant number and is definitely something with the potential to grow as more companies take advantage of the growing usage of social media for news consumption and as new social media platforms are developed over time.
Looking at the breakdown of what app is used the most out of the students sampled, Tik Tok had a comfortable lead.
28% of the students sampled said that they got news from Tik Tok often with second place instagram at 21%. Third place Twitter at 16% and Facebook finished last at 13% of the students sampled saying that they often get news from Facebook.
This matches up with national averages. According to Pew Research Center, about 25% of the people (all ages) surveyed viewed their news on social media often in 2024.
While it is a great tool to see how Wright Students compare, it is not necessarily comparing apples to apples either; the median age taking the Pew survey was likely higher than our survey at Wright State.
The average percentage of students who reported using each social media platform for news came out to 19.5%, which is close to the national average of 25%. However, in this particular sample, Wright State students are less likely to consume news on social media compared to the national average.
Wright State students definitely have a soft spot for Instagram and Tik Tok though while the sometimes, rarely and often measures stay pretty consistent for Facebook and Twitter.
Instagram and Tik Tok are higher in the sometimes and often category than they are in the rare category. The never category measures for Tik Tok and Instagram are also much lower than they are for Facebook and Twitter.
53% of people said that they never consume news on Facebook and 52% said they never consume news on Twitter. While only 32% of people said that they never consume news on Instagram and only 44% never consume news on Tik Tok.
These are much lower than the numbers for Facebook and Twitter. Perhaps Wright State students prefer the video format popular on Instagram and Tik Tok for news consumption compared to the text format more common on Twitter and Facebook.
Limitations and Reflection
Unfortunately the survey can not provide that much insight as to why these platforms are preferred, but the data does show a clear preference for Instagram and Tik Tok.
Overall, it is interesting to note that Wright State students have a preferred social media platform for consuming news.
Even more intriguing is the fact that these students consume less news through social media compared to the national average. This trend highlights how Wright State is navigating the ever-changing and evolving news cycle.
