Making Friends and Influencing People: The Effect of Social Media on Political Knowledge Overconfidence

During the 2019-2020 academic year I am undertaking the process of writing a senior thesis. In the fall semester, I took part in a Senior Thesis methodology survey, where the undergraduate honors cohort learned the ins and outs of reserach design and began developing our theses. During the spring semester, I developed my research design and am currently waiting on IRB approval to run my survey. Here’s a little bit more information about this process.

Fall 2019

PS 495: Provides an advanced overview of methodological issues in political science especially identification of research questions and design of research strategies in political science appropriate for a senior thesis. Requires completion of a substantial research proposal.

The 2019-2020 honors cohort spent the fall of 2019 studying research methods and design under the direction of Professor Matt Winters. We discussed topics such as the philosophy of science, formulating reserach questions and hypotheses, and the gold standards of reserach design.

My research focuses on the effect of social media networks on political knowledge overconfidence. Do our friends inadvertently cause us to think we know more than we do? Although more and more people say that they are using Facebook to gather news, most users find news while on Facebook for other reasons and don’t actually follow a news organization. It turns out, people see news on Facebook mostly when it is shared by their friends. Not only do Facebook users mostly see content when it is shared by their friends, the friends they trust to share accurate information can lead a person to be overconfident in their level of political knowledge. My research asks if the type of friend who shares political news can affect levels of overconfidence.

Spring 2020

As part of this process, we were asked to locate advisors for our thesis. My advisor is Professor Scott Althaus, who’s research focuses on political communication. With his guidance, I designed an experiment to test the effect of classes of friends sharing political content and their effect on levels of political knowledge. This reserach is ongoing, and the final thesis will be available in early May. My reserach has also been accepted for presentation at the Illinois Undergraduate Research Symposium where I will be presenting a post on April 30, 2020 in the Illini Union. Please reach out before then if you have any questions about my reserach by visiting my contact widget.