This study examines what motivated high school students and university students to consume political content prior to the Swedish 2022 election. In addition, this study aims to investigate if there are any connections between the consumer’s motivation, preferred media and political sympathies. By primarily applying the uses and gratifications theory this study could draw several different indications of what motivated students to consume political content. As a complement to the uses and gratifications theory, the theory about knowledge gap and the socialisation theory was used. A survey was designed using these three different theories as well as previous scientifically conducted research. Survey questions included, among others, which factors were the most important for consuming news, political interest on a scale from one to five and which social media or news plattform was the most preferred for consuming political content prior to the Swedish 2022 election. This quantitative study included 19 questions and resulted in 298 answers by different participants via email. The result of this study indicates that seeking information was the most important motivation for students to take part in political content, regardless of education level or political opinion. Furthermore, a connection between political sympathies and media usage was discovered. Students who had sympathies for the opposition on the left side of the political spectrum (Vänsterpartiet, Miljöpartiet, Socialdemokraterna and Centerpartiet) preferred mainly the public service media. While the people who sympathised with the right leaning (Liberalerna, Moderaterna, Kristdemokraterna and Sverigedemokraterna) preferred to a greater extent the commercial media. This study also indicated that there is a difference between how much political content high school students and university students consumed before the election on the 11th of September 2022. The difference is shown both in traditional media usage but also in the frequency of social media use. The high school students tended to have a higher motivation for consuming more media in general.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-118427 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Malmgren, Jacob, Brostedt, Simon |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för medier och journalistik (MJ) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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