Berkley Ponce Awarded a $5,000 URSA Research Grant

Berkley Ponce, a Junior Political Science major, has been awarded a 2024-2025 URSA Research Grant for her project titled “Social Media and Political Polarization”. Berkley is working with Dr. Patrick Flavin in the Political Science Department to investigate the role of social apps such as TikTok and Instagram on political polarization. The two theorize that less researched social apps such as TikTok and Instagram will produce more polarization than those commonly examined in the established literature, and a user’s amount of political content in addition to total time spent on these apps both affect one’s level of polarization. Since social media is increasingly utilized as a political news source, it is important to inform a population who participates in democracy how this trend may impact their attitudes toward political matters. Berkley hopes to encourage people to practice more critical media consumption to not fall into the trap of misinformation that can accompany news on non-traditional media sources such as social media. Berkley has presented this research at the Baylor McNair Research Conference and the Florida International University McNair Research Conference. Berkley and Dr. Flavin hope to publish this research project in the near future.

The idea for this project initially came from an assignment for Dr. Flavin’s research methods course, and, since then, has transformed into the official study it is today. Her motivation for this research originates from her experiences with social media. Berkley noticed increasing tensions amongst political parties simultaneously occurring with an increase in social media consumption and was interested in this connection. She emphasizes the importance of critical media consumption as we enter the age of AI and other technological advances that may allow disinformation to disseminate easier. This project allowed Berkley to explore her interest in research and subsequently led her to discover her true career path. Berkley originally planned on becoming a lawyer however, she notes that after working on her research full-time with the McNair Scholars Program over the Summer, Berkley “switched to the PhD route, which is a much better fit for me and my interests than law school”. After graduation, Berkley hopes to pursue a Ph.D. and begin a career in policy advising. She desires to utilize her passion for research to positively impact the U.S. political scene in a tangible way. Drs. Patrick and Rebecca Flavin introduced Berkley to the McNair Scholars Program and helped her with the application process. As a McNair Scholar, Berkley attends professional workshops and conferences to further her research career and provide support for graduate school. She notes that the leadership from Steven Fernandez and Rico Garza as well as the community McNair has provided has been invaluable to her success. Apart from McNair, Berkley is involved in Adelante Peer Mentorship, Hispanic Student Association, Latin Dance Society, and the Scholars Transforming Through Research Team. Berkley encourages others to get involved on campus as she “transferred to Baylor just one year ago and knew no one...[so], don’t be afraid to go to that organization’s meeting or get coffee with that professor or whatever it may be.”