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.

Media witnessing and storytelling for environmental justice (EJ) provide an avenue to understand the relationships between “multiple realities of environmental injury” and to analyze “fleeting phenomena with lasting form; thereby transforming phenomena that are experienced in a plurality of lives into publicly recognized history” (Houston, 2012, 419, 422). This creates opportunities to challenge and eradicate the oppressive structures that deem certain individuals and groups disposable and ultimately protect the possessive investment in whiteness. Therefore, for the purposes of EJ, media witnessing creates space for dynamic, citizen-based storytelling which can undermine narratives that promote the life versus economy framework that has perpetuated oppression, injustice, and state sanctioned violence. Media witnessing in an EJ context demonstrates the potential for collective understanding and action, political opportunities, and healing.<br/>This paper is an analysis of the process of media witnessing in regards to the Flint Water Crisis and the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and will apply an EJ lens to this phenomenon. It will discuss how media witnessing in response to these two crises can be used as a precedent for understanding and utilizing this framework and digital storytelling to address the crises of 2020, primarily the COVID-19 pandemic and racial injustice. It will then examine how the intersectionality of race, gender, and age has implications for future media witnessing and storytelling in the context of EJ movements. Finally, it will explain how media witnessing can motivate holistic policymaking in the favor of EJ initiatives and the health and wellbeing of all Americans, as well as how such policymaking and initiatives must acknowledge the double-edged sword that is social media.