“Oh yeah, I read something about that on Instagram the other day” – Researching the cultural difference between students in the Netherland and Germany in the use of social media as a source of information on socio-political issues

Abstract

In this thesis, the role of the social media platforms Instagram and Twitter as sources of information on socio-political issues was examined. The aim was to discover behaviours and attitudes of 18 to 29-year-old students in the Netherlands and Germany towards social media. Furthermore, it should be determined whether the platforms influenced the politicisation of the students, how much the students trusted social media and how they dealt with misinformation. A contrastive approach to intercultural communication, and a mixed-method approach were chosen. First, a qualitative part was carried out, including semi-structured interviews with 3 Dutch and 3 German participants, which served as a basis for developing the quantitative part. In the quantitative part, a questionnaire was distributed that received 37 answers for the Netherlands and 64 answers for Germany. The results demonstrated that Instagram is an important information platform for students in both countries. Students from Germany used Instagram more as a source for neutral information, while students from the Netherlands followed more political aligned accounts. Furthermore, Instagram influenced the politicisation of the examined students, even though they did not trust the platform. Concludingly, the research showed that students in the Netherlands and Germany used social media similarly. Only differences in the choice of platforms and the following behaviour could be found.