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- Creators: School of Social Transformation
- Resource Type: Text
This study attempts to answer the following questions: Is civic engagement a social activity among 18-25-year-old college students? How are opinions regarding civic and political engagement impacted by social settings? How are civic and political engagement atmospheres impacted by social distancing and isolation protocol? In this study, the researcher hypothesized that civic and political engagement are social activities, so they are therefore susceptible to changing social context. Since the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted typical social interaction through social distancing and isolation protocol, the researcher hypothesized that it also altered mechanisms of civic and political engagement. Political engagement would be more prevalent among students who participate with others even in pandemic conditions that may otherwise decrease close contact and social interactions. These findings seem to disagree with the literature that suggests young people are supplanting voting with other forms of engagement (Zukin et al., 2006). Rather, the “complexity” denoted in interviews and in reports of engagements on the pre- and post-election surveys suggests that young people are voting as well as dedicating their time to other activities. Voting does seem to be a social activity according to the interviews, poll observations, and the surveys. This is consistent with the literature regarding social norms and group predictors. However, this social aspect of engagement seems to manifest in a wider variety of formats that originally thought. Finally, students continued to engage in the context of the pandemic that surrounded the election in question. It seems that the formats through which students engaged have expanded to maintain the connections that are crucial to civic participation.
For this thesis, I analyzed the discourse and content of Proposition 22, a California law which defined all workers utilizing gig-based apps to sell services as independent contractors meaning they were not legally entitled to certain protections such as minimum wage. The law was overturned in court in 2020, however, the advertisements in favor of and discourse behind the law has had a continued impact on all workers. Because of this it is important to examine and conceptualize the ideologies behind the law in order to understand how it was able to pass in a state which tends to vote in favor of increasing employee rights and regulation of industries. To do so, I utilized two methods of analysis, a discourse analysis of legal documents and a content analysis of advertisements. The former revolves around analyzing the discourse and ideologies around two versions of the legislation which were shown to the public, while the latter analysis categorizes and examines the implications of various advertisements utilized by companies to support the proposition. Ultimately, gig companies created an effective campaign that was able to repackage neoliberal deregulation for the general public while actively misrepresenting information around the law leading to long lasting effects that continue to harm workers while lining the pockets of investors despite its overturning.