![Currently the most prominent cultural/governmental tension happening in Chile today is the issues around the cost, and quality, of education in the country. Since 2011, protests and boycotts from both students and teachers have been a frequent occurrence. The student, who feel they are not political represented properly, believe that education should be free to all. These protests have been getting violent, with police using tear gas and water cannons to break up the protests, which draw huge crowds. (The most notable being a gathering of 100,000 in Santiago. Young people are not notably concerned or involved with other aspects of politics in Chile. [5] But social media seems to be playing a large part in the political movements regarding education, specifically Facebook, which is the leading social media platform in Chile by a landslide. [6] A 2010 survey done connecting facebook use to political participation in 18-29-year-olds found that Chileans with Facebook accounds participated in protests 60 percent more than Chileans who were not Facebook users. Likewise, respondents who log in to Facebook several times a day scored .40 in the measure of protest behavior, while those who did so once a week scored .30, a nearly 35% difference. [5] It was originally due to the Pinochet era that higher education became a matter of income. During the era, the government privatized many colleges, while cutting the sector’s budget 20 percent which forced the schools to have to charge significantly from students in order for them to stay afloat. According to Americas Quarterly, Chile had the second highest average college tuition in the world, after America, and that's because of the lack of financial aid, putting 85% of the tuition on the backs of families. While the poverty rate of Chile is going down over the last 50 years, [3] The average household income is still below average, according to OECD, along with the household financial wealth falling below average as well. (17,733 to 67,139 USD)[4] These protests have actually become effective in causing political change. Chile's current president is Michelle Bachelet, who beat out her three opponents with 73 percent of the vote in the 2013 elections. She stands for free education, same-sex marriage, equal pay, and environmental protection. She announced a 500 million dollar stimulus plan in 2014, raising taxes of big coorperations from 20 percent to 27 percent. [1] 91 percent of Chileans own a cellphone. (39 percent own a smartphone) ; 55% of Chileans 18-29 have a smartphone, while 22% of 50+ do. 77% of Chileans ages 18-29 use online social networking sites; only 24% of 50+ do. http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/02/13/selected-age-break-tables/](images/u523-85.png)
One of the largest points of media fueling this movement is social media, specifically Facebook, which has the most active mobile social media penetration in all of the Americas. The statistics from this study revealed that 50 percent of Chileans surveyed with Internet access took at least once a month. [Figure 1]
