New Determinants of Political Socialization in the Internet Age

The media appears to play an increasingly significant role in the process of political socialization. This is the outcome of the large amount of time people spend every day in front of their screens and other sources of information on the one hand, and from the growing ‘intimacy’ of their relations with their devices. A majority of Poles (ca. 64% in 2017 in the 15+ age group) have smartphones, and thus the possibility of being online at practically every moment. This proportion can be assumed to be even higher among schoolchildren. This precipitates a question of the extent to which access to the web influences the process of political socialization, and what impact it has on the processes of social adjustment. This article attempts to compare and review theoretical tenets of the concept of political socialization. The validity of some assumptions made in the pre-internet area is questioned in the face of the contemporary reality of the world operating in permanently-logged-in mode. A handful of recommendations are also put forward for a more socially useful application of the media in the adjustment of the individual (in particular young people) to living in the circumstances of media democracy.