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Communication practices in social media: Expression, avoidance, and silence. Implications for research and learning democratic values

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Abstract

Learning to be tolerant is important in multiethnic societies. Based on the premises that tolerance is built through dialogue and that nowadays much informal learning takes place in social media, this paper explores the reactions of young people when they receive racist memes through social media, and how they dare to express their opinions(or not). Responses of undergraduate students to messages presented in print and Facebook were compared using quantitative and qualitative techniques. Quantitative analyses took into consideration their perception of each medium, their self-efficacy, and the amount of invested mental effort. Results showed significant differences in perceptions of each medium, as well as the percentage of students who chose not to respond (26.8% did not respond in Facebook). Using qualitative techniques, a variety of strategies to express or avoid opinions were identified. In order to confirm the identified strategies and investigate further reasons for not responding, the study was replicated using a class discussion forum simulating an instant messaging group. Reasons for keeping silent were categorized. Discussion of the results found refers to the need of including the interaction of sociocultural variables with cognition and media affordances in the theory of media research, as well as to the implications for the learning of values and interculturalism.

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Notes

  1. Findings of the first phase of the study were published in 2019 as part of the Proceedings of the XV Congreso Nacional de Investigación Educativa organized by the Consejo Mexicano de Investigación Educativa (Navarro-Hernández and Porras-Hernández, 2019).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad de Las Américas Puebla, Ex Hacienda Santa Catarina Mártir S/N, C.P. 72810, San Andrés Cholula, Puebla, México

    Laura Helena Porras-Hernández

  2. Colegio Los Sauces A.C., Puebla, México

    María de Lourdes Navarro-Hernández

Authors
  1. Laura Helena Porras-Hernández
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  2. María de Lourdes Navarro-Hernández
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Correspondence to Laura Helena Porras-Hernández.

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Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution. The Project was approved by the institutional Committee of Evaluation of Research Projects. The study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Data used in this study was provided by participants who gave their informed consent.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. No funding was received for this research.

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Porras-Hernández, L.H., Navarro-Hernández, M. Communication practices in social media: Expression, avoidance, and silence. Implications for research and learning democratic values. Educ Inf Technol 28, 4993–5010 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11419-4

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