Ariadne Vromen

The great equalizer? Patterns of social media use and youth political engagement in three advanced democracies

Recent developments suggest a strong relationship between social media use and political engagement and raise questions about the potential for social media to help stem or even reverse patterns of political inequality that have troubled scholars for years. In this paper, we articulate a model of social media and political engagement among young people, and test it using data from representative samples of young people in Australia, the USA, and the UK. Our results suggest a strong, positive relationship between social media use and political engagement among young people across all three countries, and provide additional insights regarding the role played by social media use in the processes by which young people become politically engaged. Notably, our results also provide reasons to be optimistic concerning the overall influence of this popular new form of digital media on longstanding patterns of political inequality.

The networked young citizen: social media, political participation and civic engagement

The accusations that young people are politically apathetic and somehow failing in their duty to participate in many democratic societies worldwide have been refuted by a growing number of academic...

Young people, social media and connective action: from organisational maintenance to everyday political talk

Social media is pervasive in the lives of young people, and this paper critically analyses how politically engaged young people integrate social media use into their existing organisations and political communications. This qualitative research project studied how young people from a broad range of existing political and civic groups use social media for sharing information, mobilisation and, increasingly, as a means to redefine political action and political spaces. Twelve in-person focus groups were conducted in Australia, the USA and the UK with matched affinity groups based on university campuses. The groups were of four types: party political group, issue-based group, identity-based group and social group. Our focus group findings suggest that this in-depth approach to understanding young peoples political engagement reveals important group-based differences emerging in young peoples citizenship norms: between the dutiful allegiance to formal politics and a more personalised, self-actualising preference for online, discursive forms of political engagement and organising. The ways in which political information is broadcast, shared and talked about on social media by engaged young people demonstrate the importance of communicative forms of action for the future of political engagement and connective action.

Australian young people's participatory practices and internet use

This paper examines the relationship between Internet use and political participation among Australian young people. Based on original survey data it demonstrates that there clearly exists a ‘digital divide’ amongst 18–34-year-old Australians, which is delineated on demographic characteristics of geography, education level, income level and occupational classification. While the Internet has far from replaced the traditional information sources of television and newspapers, it does, however, facilitate participation undertaken by already politically engaged young people. The Internet has fundamental importance in facilitating information sharing and organizing for young people involved in activist and community groups. The paper also provides case studies of two non-government, youth-oriented organizations with participatory Internet sites (Vibewire Youth Services and Inspire Foundation) to further explore the potential of Internet enhancement of young peoples autonomous political spaces. One site provides Internet-only, youth-specific mental health services and has developed a portal for active community-based participation. It has won commendations for encouraging youth ownership of service provision and providing space for youth participation. The other site provides discussion and journalism for and by young people on a range of cultural, social and political issues. This site also engages in mainstream political issues through ‘electiontracker’, which provided four young people with the opportunity to join the mainstream media in following and reporting on the 2004 Australian federal election campaign. The focus in this paper on heterogenous acts of participation is able to expand our understanding of the democratizing potential of young peoples Internet-based political practices.

Everyday youth participation? Contrasting views from Australian policymakers and young people

Youth participation, as a form of consultation within policymaking processes in Australia, has been largely critiqued for its reliance on formal participation mechanisms that are rarely inclusive or representative of a range of young people’s experiences. This article shows that policymakers who are critical of formal methods of youth participation can identify contemporary effective practice and believe initiatives ought to be youth-led, purposeful, provide feedback and be creative and fun. Thus, there is a new awareness by policymakers of the effectiveness of integrating young people’s everyday perspectives into participation. Similarly, it was found that participation and active involvement in decision making was meaningful for young people when it was youth-led, fun and informal, and based on relevant, everyday issues rather than complex policy processes. So why has youth participation remained static and focused mainly on new formal initiatives? To examine this contrast in views and practices, the article presents findings from four discussion groups convened with senior government and community policymakers and a qualitative examination of both marginalized young people’s understanding of youth participation mechanisms and their capacity to influence policymaking that affected their everyday lives.

Building virtual spaces: Young people, participation and the Internet

The Internet is often portrayed as a democratising force that facilitates new participatory practices. It is often assumed that young people have been the big ‘winners’, even the leaders, in the advent of participation via the Internet. It is argued here that an in-depth analysis of existing participatory spaces is able to expand our understanding of how Australian young people are being mobilised into new Internet-based political practices. The article provides case studies of three non-government organisations with participatory Internet sites – Vibewire Youth Services, Inspire Foundation and GetUp!. The novelty of these youth-led, Internet-based political spaces is evaluated, and the differences between the sites reveals varied approaches to liberal, communitarian and deliberative forms of participation. The level of interactivity, capacity for agency by young people, and possibilities for community building, are all explored.

CONSTRUCTING AUSTRALIAN YOUTH ONLINE

This paper investigates whether youth-oriented websites can create new spaces for civic and political engagement. Through engagement with two areas of recent debate: the emergence of new forms of political participation through the internet and work on civic youth web spheres, it suggests that the national discursive context matters in understanding the availability of online civic opportunities. General findings show that young people are no longer labelled as politically apathetic, but have, instead, rejected institutionalized politics to focus on creating new spaces for everyday politics through local communities and the internet. However, this field tends to ignore diversity in political practices and preferences among young people and the continuing importance of official discourses in shaping opportunities for participation and engagement. In the Australian case, the state has remained a powerful actor, guiding young people into preferred forms of participation and has only had a limited foray into using innovative and interactive online mechanisms. Through content analysis of a mixture of government and community organization-led sites, that are either wholly online or tied to established offline organizations, this paper shows that a discourse and practice of managed, dutiful citizenship remains prevalent among sites aimed at the Australian youth. The sites that offer alternative, self-actualizing forms of citizenship expression and action for young people tend to be youth-led, online only, and receive advertising, rather than government-based, funding.

Performing for the young networked citizen? Celebrity politics, social networking and the political engagement of young people

The use of social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, by politicians and entertainers to engage young citizens can be seen as a further example of the emergence of celebrity politics. While regarded by some commentators as further evidence of the trivialization of political life, this article adopts the alternative approach of those scholars who foreground the potential for popular culture and media entertainment to be more socially inclusive, democratizing and influential in public policy making. To-date analysis of celebrity politics has tended to be focused upon the media performances of politicians and political celebrities, based upon a single country and lacking empirical evidence. This article explores what young citizens drawn from three late-modern democratic societies (Australia, United Kingdom and the US) think about the use of social media by politicians and political celebrities and whether it influenced their own outlook on politics? Our conclusions are that young citizens are generally cautiously positive about both politicians and celebrities using social media but felt that they should learn to use it appropriately if they are to rebuild trust and credibility.

Traversing time and gender: Australian young people's participation

This paper details the participatory behaviour of Australian young people through an examination of the relationship between gender, awareness of time constraints and participation. It engages with existing feminist critiques of how participation is conceptualized and recent research that looks at the effects of both structure and agency in the lives of young people. The paper is based on an original survey of 18-year-old 34-year-old Australians and shows that rather than this age group having homogeneous (or even negligible) participatory experiences, four distinct participatory typologies emerge. These four typologies are labelled as Activist, Communitarian, Party and Individualistic. Two participatory types, Activist and Communitarian, are differen tiated by gender, with women being more participatory. I argue that an understanding of the complex relationship between gender and participation is enhanced when parent ing commitments, paid work commitments, and the awareness of the relationship between time and participation are included in analysis.

Everyday Making through Facebook Engagement: Young Citizens’ Political Interactions in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States:

The emergence of personalised, interactive forms of social media has led to questions about the use of these platforms for engagement in politics. Existing research focuses on whether political actors successfully engage citizens, and how social media platforms mobilise young people into offline participation. In this article, we present original survey data on how many young people use social media to do politics: share information, express themselves, and take action. Everyday Facebook use is underpinned by young people’s engaged citizenship norms, and it has the potential to mobilise a broader range of young people. We contextualise the survey findings with qualitative analysis of how young people describe their willingness to engage in politics on social media. There is a general reluctance to take political action due to the possibility of conflict and disagreement within their networks; however, some acknowledge it is a way to bring the disengaged into political debate.