Social Media Exposure, Institutional Trust, and Democratic Support among Young People
- Programa:
- Sesión 2, Sesión 2
Día: miércoles, 9 de septiembre de 2026
Hora: 11:30 a 13:15
Lugar: 22
A growing body of scholarship examines how social media shapes political attitudes and behaviour. At the same time, recent studies suggest a modest decline in democratic support among some groups of young people (Lorente and Jiménez-Bravo 2025). To what extent does social media contribute to this trend by eroding institutional trust?
We argue that young people are increasingly exposed on social media to content that is critical of, and encourages mistrust in, political institutions. This exposure undermines institutional trust, which in turn is associated with lower levels of support for democracy.
To test this argument, we draw on a rarely used dataset from the Consejo de la Juventud, based on a representative sample of the Spanish population aged 18 to 35. By linking patterns of social media exposure to attitudes toward institutions and democracy, this study sheds new light on the mechanisms through which digital environments may shape democratic orientations among younger cohorts.
Palabras clave: apoyo a la democracia, confianza institucional, jóvenes, redes sociales