The Political Game On Social Media : A quantitative study of to what extent Swedish first-time voters were influenced by political videos on "TikTok"

Abstract: This research explores if Sweden, a country with high trust in the political system could be challenged by social media. The study focuses on one spectrum of social media, TikTok, that exploded during the covid-19 pandemic and is proof of how fast social media develops and reaches out to human beings. The study addresses a research gap regarding this new social media platform as it examines exposure to political content and impact on political behavior. Specifically, the study focuses on first-time voters voting behavior in the Swedish election 2022. This thesis is based on a digital survey sent out to 139 respondents during November 2022. The result indicates that there is a relationship between viewing time on TikTok and voting behavior among young voters in the Swedish election 2022. The study ends with a discussion about how specific political content the respondent was exposed to on TikTok could have had an impact on the political behavior in the Swedish election 2022.