This paper aims to investigate the relationship between political engagement on TikTok and the perceived levels of polarization among first-time voters in Sweden. Since there are many ways to engage with political content on TikTok, a distinction has been made between passive engagement and active engagement with political content on TikTok. On this basis, the two research questions that this thesis intends to address are: RQ1: How does passive political engagement on TikTok relate to Swedish first-time voters’ perception on the level of polarization in Sweden? RQ2: How does active political engagement on TikTok relate to Swedish first-time voters’ perception on the level of polarization in Sweden? With the foundation in previous literature and theoretical concepts, the hypotheses of the study expected there to be a positive relationship between political engagement in TikTok and perceived polarization, with active engagement expected to have a stronger effect than passive engagement. To investigate the relationship, an online survey was conducted in April 2023 with 106 respondents and the data was later presented in a OLS regression. The results found no support for the formulated hypotheses, as there was no statistically significant relationship for either active or passive engagement on TikTok and perceived polarization. Instead the analysis suggests that political placement and engagement with political news in traditional media are found to be linked to perceived polarization.

Political actors and parties have, during the parliamentary elections 2018, marketed themselves in a different way than before. Many influential people on social media who have a younger audience have been involved in the electoral movement and tried to make the "most important" issues easier to understand. While changes in politics take place, young people do not have confidence in party politics. Interest in politics has increased, but the reduced confidence in established political actors has decreased. We wanted to investigate whether the young voters themselves noticed the political change. The purpose of this study was to investigate how first-time voters, who are members of youth unions, talk about political confidence and Influencer marketing in politics. The research questions that have been phrased based on the purpose are: How do political active first-time voters perceive collaborations between influencers and political parties? And how does politically active first-time voters talk about their confidence in Swedish politics? In addition to previous research, we have used qualitative interview method to be able to get opinions and perceptions from the intended selection of informants. The study is based on theories of trust, advocacy, influencers, E-Word of Mouth (e-WOM) and the Two-step hypothesis. The result of the study shows that first-time voters who are politically active in youth unions have shared views on influencer marketing. First-time voters also have high confidence in Swedish politics, but have the understanding that people who are not familiar with politics do not have the same confidence. Especially given the ongoing government crisis. The result also distinguishes some important points that the respondents believe are of great importance. This is, among other things, that the cooperation must be with all parties and that the cooperation must be in accordance with the party's ideologies. The final conclusions we can draw from this study is that the respondents believe that it is good that the politics is addressed in rooms where it is given the opportunity to spread. But the respondents also believe that politicians should adhere to politics and that the significant role of the political issues falls into the background of the party leader's personal conformation on social media. / Politiska aktörer och partier har under riksdagsvalet 2018 marknadsfört sig på ett annorlunda sätt än tidigare. Många inflytelserika människor på sociala medier som har en yngre målgrupp har engagerat sig i valrörelsen och försökt göra valfrågorna mer lättbegripliga. Samtidigt som förändringar i politiken sker saknar unga förtroende till partipolitiken. Intresset för politiken har ökat men den minskade tilltron till etablerade politiska aktörer har minskat. Vi ville därför undersöka ifall unga väljare själva märkt av den politiska förändringen. Syftet med denna studie blev att undersöka hur förstagångsväljare, som är medlemmar i ungdomsförbund, pratar om politiskt förtroende och Influencer marketing inom politiken. De frågeställningar som utformats utifrån syftet är: Hur uppfattar politiskt aktiva förstagångsväljare samarbeten mellan influencers och politiska partier? Och hur pratar politiskt aktiva förstagångsväljare om sitt förtroende för svensk politik? Förutom tidigare forskning har vi använt oss av kvalitativ intervjumetod för att kunna analysera åsikter och uppfattningar från det tilltänkta urvalet. Studien bygger på teorier om förtroende, opinionsbildning, influencers, E-Word of Mouth (e-WOM) och Tvåstegshypotesen. Resultatet av studien visar på att förstagångsväljare som är politiskt aktiva i ungdomsförbund har delade åsikter angående influencer marketing. Förstagångsväljarna har dessutom högt förtroende för svensk politik, men har förståelse för att människor som inte är insatta i politiken inte har lika högt förtroende. Speciellt med tanke på den pågående riksdagskrisen. Resultatet urskiljer också några viktiga punkter som respondenterna menar är av stor vikt. Detta är bland annat att samarbetet måste ske med samtliga politiska partier och att samarbetet måste vara i enlighet med partiets ideologier. De slutslatser vi kan dra av denna studie är att respondenterna anser att det är bra att politiken tas upp i rum där den får möjlighet att spridas. Men att respondenter menar att politiker ska hålla sig till politik och att sakfrågornas betydande roll hamnar i bakgrunden för partiledarens personliga gestaltning på sociala medier.

This master's thesis named The influence of communication channels on decision making of first-time voters shown on the elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic in 2017 focuses on the influence and use of the consumption of communication channels on the decision making of first-time voters. This thesis also portrays the phenomenon of contemporary opinion leaders, such as YouTubers, bloggers, and other Internet celebrities. The theoretical section of the thesis describes the organization of elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, defines the first-time voter in terms of psychological and sociological, discusses the impact of socialization within family, school, and media, presents the concept of political efficacy, and describes the electoral participation of adolescents. In addition, this thesis focuses on current trends in the consumption of communication channels by young people and opinion leaders. This section draws upon particular international studies and other relevant literature. The analytical section presents the methodology of the research, defines the research sample and its selection, and describes the results of the research. The established hypotheses are based on the results of international studies and for...

This research explores if Sweden, a country with high trust in the political system could be challenged by social media. The study focuses on one spectrum of social media, TikTok, that exploded during the covid-19 pandemic and is proof of how fast social media develops and reaches out to human beings. The study addresses a research gap regarding this new social media platform as it examines exposure to political content and impact on political behavior. Specifically, the study focuses on first-time voters voting behavior in the Swedish election 2022. This thesis is based on a digital survey sent out to 139 respondents during November 2022. The result indicates that there is a relationship between viewing time on TikTok and voting behavior among young voters in the Swedish election 2022. The study ends with a discussion about how specific political content the respondent was exposed to on TikTok could have had an impact on the political behavior in the Swedish election 2022.