{"id":987,"date":"2011-09-21T09:43:13","date_gmt":"2011-09-21T13:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=987"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:28:08","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:28:08","slug":"are-social-media-good-for-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/09\/21\/are-social-media-good-for-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Social Media Good for Democracy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Peters<\/em><\/p>\n

The more students use social media, the more they support free expression, according to a report released last week.<\/p>\n

Policy researcher\u00a0Kenneth Dautrich<\/a>\u00a0surveyed 12,090 high school students and 900 teachers about free expression, from April to June. His findings, published Friday in a\u00a0Knight Foundation report<\/a>, were many and varied\u2014and contextualized, because the survey was the fourth in a series that began in 2004.<\/p>\n

<\/span>First, there is a positive relationship between student social-media use and support for free expression.\u00a0 For example, 91 percent of students who use social media daily agreed that \u201cpeople should be allowed to express unpopular opinions.\u201d\u00a0 Only 77 percent of students who never use social media felt the same way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The link is there, but which is the chicken and which is the egg?\u00a0 Does social-media use cause students to better appreciate free expression?\u00a0 Or do students who appreciate free expression more often use social media?\u00a0 The report punted on that question.<\/p>\n

Factors that did significantly affect students\u2019 support for free expression\u2014the researcher controlled for them\u2014are GPA and class standing.\u00a0 The higher the GPA, the greater the support; the higher the class standing, the greater the support.<\/p>\n

Second, student social-media use is exploding.\u00a0 More than 75 percent of students use social media, like Facebook or Twitter, several times a week.\u00a0 Nearly 65 percent, up from 31 percent in 2006, use the Internet several times a week to get news and information.\u00a0 And 71 percent, up from 39 percent in 2006, watch online videos several times a week.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to draw broad conclusions based on that data, other than to state the obvious: that media-consumption patterns are changing.\u00a0 But if social-media use\u00a0does<\/em>\u00a0cause students to appreciate free expression, then these are good changes.<\/p>\n

Third, in general students and teachers today appreciate their First Amendment rights more than they did in the past.\u00a0 Just 24 percent of students, down from 45 percent in 2006, said the First Amendment goes too far in protecting people\u2019s rights.\u00a0 Similarly, 25 percent of teachers, down from 33 percent in 2006, said the First Amendment goes too far. Plus, nearly all students and teachers agreed that \u201cpeople should be allowed to express unpopular opinions.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unless, of course, you\u2019re a teacher and the person expressing the unpopular opinion is a student.<\/p>\n

Only 36 percent of teachers, compared with 69 percent of students, said students should be able to express themselves on Facebook \u201cwithout worrying about being punished at school.\u201d\u00a0 Likewise, only 35 percent of teachers, compared with 61 percent of students, said students should be able to write about controversial issues in school media without the administration\u2019s approval.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s disappointing but unsurprising.\u00a0 Schools for decades have had a fitful relationship with free expression, and many of them have used\u00a0Tinker<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Hazelwood<\/em><\/a>\u00a0to justify all manner of censorship.\u00a0 Studies conducted before and after those cases have shown, however, that the majority of schools always have restricted student speech.\u00a0 Undoubtedly, some of the restrictions are legitimate. The tough job is distinguishing the acceptable from the unacceptable, in communities that can\u2019t decide to what extent schools should operate like the rest of society.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Peters is a lawyer and the Frank Martin Fellow at the Missouri School of Journalism, where he\u2019s specializing in the First Amendment.\u00a0 He\u2019s written on legal issues for a variety of news media, most recently Wired and PBS. He can be reached at\u00a0jonathan.w.peters@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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