Jorryn Cooper
Mat Wenzel
ENC2135
July 11th, 2018
Social Media: College Democrats and Student Activism
When I looked at the FSU College Democrats’ Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages, the first thing I was greeted with was the smiling face of someone dressed in blue. Many of their posts include pictures of their members at different events. There’s one post of a group of kids dressed in blue, at the “Out of the Darkness” walk for suicide prevention. Another is of some higher up members surrounded by laptops, pens, and sticky notes, celebrating the election of a democrat in House District 114, captioned “We managed to make to make over 200 calls to help Javier Fernandez get out the vote!” Below that, someone’s responded “You guys rock.” There’s an abundance of posts advertising reasons to call your senators, and a lot of events where they group up to do this together. Many are simply updates on policy actions being taken under our current administration (if you can call our administration “simple”). There are also plenty of posts encouraging people to vote.
There’s a series of posts on their Instagram page called the “Dem Spotlight.” Here, they post about different members and what they do within the club. One member’s spotlight talks about his involvement with the gun control caucus, another with the Progressive caucus. Another girl under the spotlight, Kathryn, is a FSU student senate member. In all these posts, the captions praise their involvement with the club and their involvement outside of it as well. Some even lobby at the state level. The students who are featured in these posts are all very active. The pictures are a little all over the place. Some are in graduation caps, some are vacation pictures, some are posing with state representatives. They don’t appear to always praise the actual lobbyists. every post is made with the goal of encouraging being politically active, whether these people plan to enter politics or not.
Another set of posts, on their twitter, is a set of responses to the FCC’s vote on net neutrality. Most of these posts are actually retweets from different accounts, a mix of corporations like Netlfix and mostly teens. A tweet posted by Netflix reads, “We’re disappointed in the decision to gut #NetNeutrality protections that ushered in an unprecedented era of innovation, creativity & civic engagement.” The next tweet features a screenshot from the tv show Parks and Recreation, with the caption “saving net neutrality like:” This mix of youthful humor, and the acknowledgement of the seriousness of the situation is a theme that reoccurs throughout the pages. They’re passionate about what they write about, but they also never discount the importance of people their age getting involved.
Activism is of course an extremely important and routinely occurring theme. You’ll see tons of Facebook events encouraging the attendance of different rallies. One is a counter-protest called titled “Stand Up to White Supremacy.” Another is a set of tweets from the March For Our Lives at the Florida Capitol. The pictures are very pointed, with everyone standing together for one cause. Throughout their pages, the Dems consistently encourage students to participate in rallies like these one. You’re always reminded of the importance of taking action, and College Dems gives students a place where they know they are standing side by side with people they know and who care about the same issues.
Private screenings of documentaries are also something that appear to be a common event in the College Democrats. One screening showed a documentary about sexual assault, called “The Hunting Ground.” Another was titled “Forbidden: Undocumented and Queer in Rural Areas. Obviously, the importance of staying informed is not lost on them. Showing documentaries like these show how important is to show your voice for people who don’t always have one, and people are reminded of that.
Overall, the messages in the College Democrats’ social media pages might seem pretty jumbled, but scrolling through the underlying theme is pretty clear. When looking at their pages, one is always reminded of how important it is to take part in the political process, even now when many are so disillusioned and feel like their voice doesn’t matter. More subtly, one is reminded of the importance of young people taking place in this process as well. From the link to a buzzfeed quiz titled “Which Florida College Democrat Executive Board Member Are You?” to the phone banks to defend DACA or spread the word about democratic senators, college students are reminded that they too have a place in the political sphere and their action is both important and necessary.