The Study of Young People's Civic Participation on the Internet

This chapter reviews the body of academic literature about young people's online civic participation. It will first sketch how this literature has developed historically in the context of old and changing scholarly discussions about what civic participation and democratic citizenship more generally do or should envelop. The second section outlines how extant empirical studies on young people's civic participation online may be subdivided into four strands of research, each focusing on different questions and relying on different methods. The closing section provides a number of directions for further research, mostly calling for innovative and more pressing context-specific and people-centered research approaches.

The Demobilizing Potential of Conflict for Web and Mobile Political Participation

In this chapter, we expand the idea that conflict avoidance (CA) inhibits online political participation. We specifically propose that CA has a direct negative link with traditional online political participation and online political expression, and an indirect negative link with these two forms of participation when mediated by political interest and internal political efficacy. We test our propositions through analyzing data from a survey of young adult college students residing in a battleground state in the U.S. Midwest conducted during the weeks prior to the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Our results showed that CA has a direct negative association with both traditional online political participation and online political expression. CA also has a negative relationship with political interest and internal political efficacy, which in turn, are positively linked with traditional online political participation and online political expression. We discussed implications.

Women's Political Empowerment

Political participation by women is central to development and the empowerment of all citizens. This chapter argues for the recognition of opportunities for women in leadership, political participation, and the strengthening of democracy at the level of subnational governments. A key reason for focusing on gender equity in political life is that women constitute slightly more than half of the world's population, and they contribute to the social and economic development of all societies to a greater degree than men because of their dual roles in the productive and reproductive spheres. At the same time, their participation in formal political structures and processes, where they can contribute to decisions on the use of societal resources generated by both men and women, remains far below parity. Drawing examples from a range of national parliaments and countries, this chapter demonstrates lessons for increasing political participation by women in subnational governance.

Changes in the Political Culture of Italian Younger Politicians

In the last decade, Italy has gone through some deep changes in the political sphere. The fall of the Berlin Wall had forced political parties from opposite sides to re-organize themselves: their targets, ideologies and projects. At the same time, these historical events have been shortly followed by a major national bribe scandal that invested the main political leaders who had governed the Country for half a century. As a result, the last turn of the past Millennium has left a strongly politicized Country with no acknowledged leaders, no clear ideologies, no traditional, recognizable parties. It is in those years that Berlusconi's new venture gained votes and success. The fracture between political organizations, leaders and citizens though, became unhealable. The younger generations seemed to be the ones who suffered the most from political apathy or, worse, distrust. So we wanted to investigate who were the young politicians who, in these times of crises, had chosen politics as an important part of their lives. We have carried out two different surveys in different years and we found that political parties were changing deeply and radically. That their role in the political socialization of young political actors had become very thin. That candidates began to be chosen amongst the affluent few or, at least, amongst those whose personal fame and social/professional/family network would guarantee their party at least a dowry of votes that could make the difference in times of elections. But this method would not guarantee cohesion nor government stability.

Children and Youth Making Digital Media for the Social Good

This chapter describes how children and youth are using digital media to address inequity in their schools, communities, and in society. The chapter begins with a review of the historical and cultural roots of children making digital media for the social good, and situates the approach in the context of other civic and community-based movements. The next section focuses on the range of ways that children and youth are making digital media, including who is participating, and the social and institutional factors involved. The next sections describe the benefits for the participants and for society, as well as the barriers to broader participation. Two case studies highlight key strategies for engaging marginalized youth in making digital media for the social good, and ways to expand the popularity of this approach. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research, and the broader implications for education, civic engagement, social practice and policy.

Surveillance and Resistance

This chapter provides readers with an overview and discussion of the manner in which the Internet and social media has facilitated movements, ranging from Aryan Nations and the various European Defence Leagues, to the Global Jihadist Movement and anarchist groups. As the phenomenon of netwar and online recruitment evolved after 9/11, extremist movements motivated by illiberal and apocalyptic ideologies have found the Internet a congenial space for organization, dissemination, education and radicalization. This chapter examines the difficulty liberal political democracies have in censoring these groups and the ideas they promote. Civil rights organizations immediately condemn state electronic surveillance as an invasion of civil liberties, and present the liberal democrat with an acute moral and political dilemma. This chapter finally considers the tactics democratic states might prudently adopt in order to preserve the national interest.

Network Politics and the Arab Spring

Network politics is examined in the context of the Arab Spring. Network politics refers to politics and networks. These networks include the Internet, private networks, cellular networks, telephone networks, radio networks, television networks, etc. Network politics includes the applications of networks to enable one or more individuals or organizations to engage in political communication. Furthermore, network politics includes government regulation of networks. Finally, network politics includes the accompanying issues that arise when networks are used for political communication or when there is government regulation of networks. The domain of network politics includes, but is not limited to, e-politics (social networking for driving revolutions and organizing protests, online petitions, political blogs and vlogs, whistleblower websites, online campaigning, e-participation, virtual town halls, e-voting, Internet freedom, access to information, net neutrality, etc.) and applications of other networks in politics (robocalling, text messaging, TV broadcasting, etc.). Network politics has played a crucial role in the Arab Spring.

The Networked Self

The number of digital networks established for a common social ‘cause' having passion of civic activism increase globally day by day. The purpose of this study is to provide explanations for civic engagement through social media causes. In the current study, a structured questionnaire is administered to 308 social media users in Turkey. The findings refine existing research bringing a new perspective to collectivism by explaining civic engagement in specific areas through social media causes in terms of individualistic values, self-identity (social vs. personal) and social media use. Overall findings ascertain social media's role on raising social capital while enhancing not only the individual selves but also collective performances through diverse civic cause engagements. The study has significant outcomes for both non-profit and profit organizations in building strategies of communication with their stakeholders through digital means.

Using Twitter in Political Campaigns

Social media has invaded elections in Mexico. However, the power of citizens through the use of this platform is still unknown. Many citizens criticize political candidates using Twitter, others build networks and some others try to collaborate with candidates. This research is focused in understanding this kind of behavior, analyzing the case of the presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto (PRI) in Mexico who won the presidency with a large participation but without the support of Twitter users. After two online protests against this presidential candidate - #IamnotProletariat and #Iam132 – political image could have been undermined and voters could have thought differently. But this was not the case and despite of this, the candidate won. The challenge to understand this online protest and its link to the political campaign is addressed in this paper.

Crowdsourcing in Local Public Administration

Social networks have become very popular online sources of participation in crowdsourcing. This article examines the antecedents of user participation in crowdsourcing and importance of online community involvement in local public administration. Based on data collected from local public administrators and local public through survey, the results produce evidence that importance of online platforms in crowdsourcing can have a consistent impact on services delivery system in local public administration and importance of online open sources have significantly higher level in crowdsourcing on the whole, while importance of social media have significantly lower level overall. The paper contributes with potential implications and recommendations for local public management to achieve effective services delivery in developing countries through crowdsourced work. The present study is the first study that not only shows the effect of online platforms in local public administration, but also analyses the antecedents of crowdsourcing for participation (knowledge sharing, consultation, innovative ideation and reporting).