Can media literacy education increase digital engagement in politics?

Figures & data

Table 1. Frequency of digital engagement learning opportunities by year.

Digital engagement learning opportunities	School year	Never (%)	Once (%)	More than once* (%)
Learned about how to create and share digital media	2012–2013	42	20	37
	2014–2015	35	17	49
Discussed how to effectively share your perspective online	2012–2013	61	18	21
	2014–2015	64	15	22

Source: Youth Participatory Politics Survey, 2013 and 2015. Entries are percentages; some rows do not add up to 100% due to rounding. All entries are survey-weighed.

*‘More than once’ column combines two response categories: ‘A few times’ and ‘Often’ in the 2013 survey, and ‘2 or 3 Times’ and ‘More than 3 Times’ in the 2015 survey.

Table 2. Engagement in and targeted political pressure by year.

	Online participatory politics		Targeted political pressure
Survey year	% Doing at least one OPP activity in last 12 months	% Doing at least one OPP activity at least once/week	% Engaging in no TPP activity in last 12 months	% Engaging in 1 TPP activity	% Engaging in 2 or 3 TPP activities
2013	39	11	71	17	12
2015	35	10	73	17	10

Source: Youth Participatory Politics Survey, 2013 and 2015. Entries are percentages; rows do not add up to 100. All entries are survey-weighed.

Table 3. Mean level of political engagement by digital engagement literacies.

	Digital engagement learning opportunities, 2013		Digital engagement learning opportunities, 2015
	None (39%)	Some (61%)	None (27%)	Some (73%)
OPP, 2013	.063	.131	.047	.129
OPP, 2015	.052	.171	.033	.163
ΔOPP	−.011	.040	−.015	.035
TPP, 2013	.255	.457	.064	.404
TPP, 2015	.285	.528	.101	.518
ΔTPP	.029	.071	.037	.114

Source: Youth Participatory Politics Survey, 2013 and 2015.

Table 4. Models of political participation.

	Dependent variable:
	Online participatory politics, 2015		Targeted political pressure, 2015
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
OPP, 2013	0.216**	0.141*
	(0.104)	(0.083)
TPP, 2013			0.714***	0.331**
			(0.138)	(0.128)
In-school DELO^a, 2015		0.177***		1.172**
		(0.060)		(0.468)
In-school DELO, 2013	0.129**		1.937***
	(0.062)		(0.541)
Male	−0.029	−0.028	−0.446	−0.369
	(0.036)	(0.029)	(0.340)	(0.267)
White	−0.142	−0.069	−1.097**	−0.500
	(0.110)	(0.064)	(0.448)	(0.401)
Black	−0.143	−0.060	−2.082***	−1.198**
	(0.112)	(0.073)	(0.660)	(0.526)
Latino	−0.165	−0.098	−1.782***	−1.183**
	(0.115)	(0.070)	(0.589)	(0.462)
Age	0.004	0.008	0.112**	0.015
	(0.011)	(0.017)	(0.050)	(0.053)
Mother has degree	0.029	0.021	−1.022***	−0.219
	(0.044)	(0.029)	(0.372)	(0.292)
Enrolled in HS, 2015		−0.031		−0.483
		(0.048)		(0.307)
Enrolled in college, 2015		−0.075*		−0.472
		(0.044)		(0.317)
Political interest	0.162**	0.164***	−0.465	0.676
	(0.077)	(0.061)	(0.593)	(0.630)
Parental activism	−0.143	−0.072	0.431	0.655
	(0.089)	(0.056)	(0.561)	(0.494)
Phone survey, 2013	0.243	0.267*	1.560*	1.030*
	(0.163)	(0.152)	(0.910)	(0.570)
Constant	0.131	0.014	−2.432*	−1.090
	(0.260)	(0.295)	(1.343)	(1.197)
Observations	178	296	173	288

Note: *p < 0.1; **p < 0.05; ***p < 0.01.

Entries for models of online participatory politics are linear regression coefficients.

Entries for models of targeted political pressure are poisson coefficients.

Standard errors in parentheses. All estimates are survey-weighted.

Source: Youth Participatory Politics Survey, 2013 and 2015.

^aDigital engagement learning opportunities.