Social News Use & Citizen Participation among Young Activists in Singapore

Abstract

This article presents a study of how civically engaged young adults engage with news on social media, within the context of a developing democracy – Singapore. Based on in-depth interviews with 20 young activists, it discusses how they approach social media as a source of news, what motivates them to engage in more than one social news platform, and how social news use fits into their political lexicon. The results reveal that despite their affinity towards news-related content on social media, they are neither partial towards mainstream, nor alternative news providers on this medium. Their primary social news platform is perceived to offer the best means to disseminate news-related information. However, they are also concerned about their privacy and practice certain strategies to mitigate this. Despite its drawbacks, the activists accept social news use as a viable means of political socialisation and mobilisation.