Among the LHS student body, political ideas are hot topics in a lot of conversations. For those conversations to happen, one might assume that students are politically aware.

The definition of aware from Oxford dictionary is to be “concerned and well-informed about a particular situation or development.” In order to be politically aware, students should be well-informed about a topic before they find out where they stand. So, are the majority of the students at LHS as politically aware?

The Bell staff asks, are students keeping up with reliable sources or biased media? Are they being influenced by their friends and family? Do they even care, and should they be expected to?

The Bell staff had mixed feelings about these questions. One staff member explained the population of LHS as three categories. The first being politically involved students. They are the ones who run clubs and go to rallies. The second are kids who check up on things happening in politics. They might not really do anything about it or know the details of a situation. The third are the completely unaware group of students; whether that be because of lack of interest, or just being sheltered from it.

The Bell staff talked about aspects that go into finding out where someone stands politically.

Social media has been heavily integrated into politics in the past few years and students are trying to figure out if that information is reliable. With so many different platforms, there is a lot of room to find false information.

One teacher explained that media is a big factor in deciding what people see or don’t see. By the choices you make in which platforms you choose to follow, this will result in the kind of information you get on the same topic.

This means many people are reading just one biased headline on trending pages, so audiences are easily persuaded to think the same as media outlets. This could completely change someone’s view on a topic in which they would have had a completely different opinion if they did a little bit of research to learn more.

Overall, The Bell staff decided that LHS students are not politically aware enough. But there is hope. There are a few things that one can do to be more politically aware. Follow sources that are reliable and unbiased. Try and go to rallies, marches and events that will allow someone to find out more about the sides they could be a part of. Think about things you care about and then research the parties political stances on them. Anything that someone can do to learn more and get involved will help them become more politically aware.