Youth, media, and politics : political social media use among polish first-time voters : a case of the COVID-19 pandemic and women’s strikes

Contemporary first-time voters are the oldest representatives of the digitized Polish Generation Z, for whom social media is an attractive source of information about the world, including politics. The empirical research aims to analyse the use of social media by Polish first-time voters in two cases, which may be considered as generation defining moments: the COVID-19 pandemic and women’s strikes in Poland in 2020. This study uses a survey of 100 respondents who voted for the first time in the 2019 and 2020 elections, i.e. in the period of increased civic activity in Poland. The results present also the most popular social media in the studied group as a source of information and explore activities undertaken in social media by youth concerning the discussed events.