Twitter’s Role in Political Communication and Social Activism

Does communication on Twitter lead to action? This year’s Manheim-Sterling Undergraduate Research Prize winners Bailey Mohr and Zinhle Essamuah are taking a hard look at Twitter to see how people are using the platform for very different purposes and to reach different goals. Mohr, a senior majoring in political communication, is researching how candidates and organizations use Twitter to communicate with the public. Essamuah, a senior majoring in journalism and mass communication, hopes to uncover what the #BlackLivesMatter movement on Twitter means for the Black-American experience and dig deep into how black millennials reacted to the jury decisions and look at social media as form of activism.