Youth activism is the participation in community organizing for social change by persons between the ages of 15–24. Increasing youth activism has led to evolutions in young people's political participation, which includes activism. A notable shift within youth activism is the rise of "Alter-Activism" resulting in an emphasis on lived experiences and connectivity amongst young activists. Young activists have taken lead roles in public protest and advocacy around many issues like climate change, racism, gender, abortion rights and gun violence.
Different from past protest or advocacy, technology has become vital to many modern youth movements. It has been shown in multiple studies that internet use along with seeking information online is shown to have positive impacts on political engagement. Popular applications like Twitter, Instagram and YouTube have become the newest tools for young activists in the 21st century. Technology and the use of digital media has changed the way youth participate in activism globally, and youth are more active in media than older generations.
Overview Youth involvement in politics has been on the rise for the past 10 years. Youth is an elastic category, the age at which it begins and ends varies within cultural contexts, but it is often considered a distinct stage in a person's life to which particular issues or policies are highly relevant. These may include politics, education, health, and social issues.
Sociopolitical development is a "psychological process that covers the range of cognitions, skills, attitudes, worldviews, and emotions that support social and political action" (Watts, Griffith, & Abdul-Adil, 1999).Watts, R. J., Griffith, D. M., & Abdul-Adil, J. (1999). Sociopolitical Development as an Antidote for Oppression—Theory and Action. American Journal of Community Psychology, 27(2), 255-271. The process of SPD was further defined by Watts & Flannagan to impact young people's social analysis, worldview and sense of agency and to provide them opportunity structures and support towards their societal involvement behavior (2007)."Watts, R. J., & Flanagan, C. (2007). Pushing the envelope on youth civic engagement: A developmental and liberation psychology perspective. Journal of Community Psychology, 35(6), 779-792.
Social activism is the predominant form of youth activism today, as millions of young people around the world participate in social activism that is organized, informed, led, and assessed by adults. Many efforts, including education reform, children's rights, and government reform call on youth to participate this way, often called youth voice. Youth councils are an example of this.Chawla, L. (2002) Growing Up in an Urbanizing World. Paris/London: Earthscan/UNESCO Publishing.
Youth-driven activism requires young people to be the primary movers within an adult-led movement. Such is the case with the Sierra Club, where youth compel their peers to join and become active in the environmental movement. This is also true of many organizations that were founded by youth who became adults, such as SEAC and National Youth Rights Association.
Political activism by youth can go unnoticed because youth activism often occurs on school grounds and away from the adult society, but youth often face resistance when forming youth activist groups in schools.Gordon, H. (2010). We fight to win. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. As the central beneficiaries of public schools, youth are also advocating for student-led school change and education reform through student activism and meaningful student involvement.Checkoway, B. & Gutierrez, L. (2006) "An introduction," in Checkoway & Gutierrez (eds) Youth Participation and Community Change. New York: Hawthorne Press. p 3. While some youth participate in student government, others prefer student unions because they provide a real voice to the students and present it to the administration while student governments do not have the power to effect real change in a school system.
Technology Social media Facebook has become a tool for youth activists to gather information, post broadcasts about events and activities, participate in activists' groups, and get in contact with other activists. The ability to create events on Facebook has allowed young activists to gather in spaces in a short period of time, and to communicate any changes in the event.
Twitter has become one of the most important tools to engage with and mobilize around issues of social justice and civil rights. Twitter has many different features on the application that have been used by young activists to spread their dissent. Like many other apps, Twitter has a live-streaming feature that was particularly important in movements like the Arab Spring or the Occupy movement. Live-streaming was not the only powerful tool on Twitter—hashtags have changed the landscape of online youth activism. For many modern movements, it was the hashtag that catapulted many groups into the mainstream media. For example, in the span of 5 years, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has been shared over 30 million times just on Twitter. By capitalizing on the power and popularity of a hashtag, these young activists have been able to have an even larger conversation about police brutality and the inherent racism in American systems. #BlackLivesMatter was not the only major movement to take Twitter by storm in recent years. In October 2017, the #Metoo movement took Twitter by storm and in just the first week it is estimated that these personal stories reach 6 to 37 million Twitter users. The anonymity of Twitter allowed women to share their personal stories of abuse with less fear and these personal stories helped amplify the movement.
While Twitter has provided a platform for hashtag movements to take place, applications like Facebook and Twitter have been criticized for only instilling weak ties between activists creating a lack of offline activism. The result of these weak ties has been the formation of slacktivism—a new ineffective form of activism. A popular example of slacktivism is the social media campaign Kony 2012. While this campaign did gain strong social media traction with millions of views on their video, they failed to gain the same offline traction. A year later when they released Kony in 2013, they did get the same traction. This is just one example of the slacktivism that can result from these applications.
Video vlogging Video blogging has become an essential part of how people communicate online especially on applications like Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and even TikTok. This power of sharing videos and images can specifically be seen on Instagram. Instagram has allowed activists to do things like stream their protests live to viewers across the world. Live streaming is not the only powerful part of Instagram. Instagram has become an application for participants to gain social capital and even make a living off of their online activity. This creation of the "influencer" has allowed a rise in representation of minority communities as well as created an online community for them. The concept of the "influencer" is not the only way Instagram has shaped the political sphere. Instagram has also given a platform to share visuals that have allowed people to form their "political selves" through this application. This ability to share political visuals were most important in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, and the 2015 UK general election. Overall, like many other applications, Instagram has provided large worldwide views that could lead to large-scale activism.
Video blogging may be used by youth activists as a tool to reach out to their peers and audience, gather support, establish a discourse, and mobilize others. Young activists use videos to articulate ideas and needs, organize resources and supporters, and work toward achieving the goals and causes of their supporters.Lim, J. (2013). Video blogging and youth activism in Malaysia. International Communication Gazette, 75(3), 300-321.
YouTube has allowed activists to exit the dangerous echo chamber that can be created online. By breaking free from this echo chamber, young YouTube activists and organization have been able to have a larger conversation about their issues. YouTube has given a platform for "vloggers" to not only document their life, but also have personal (and political) conversations with a large audience all from home. Vlogging has become very popular in youth activism including the Arab Spring. In the start of the Arab Spring, Asmaa Mahfouz from Egypt posted a vlog that eventually spread across YouTube. Many believe that this vlog was one factor that helped spark the revolution that took place in Egypt in 2011. Like the Arab Spring, videos (in particular YouTube) played a very important role in the Occupy Movement as well in 2011. Having YouTube allowed protestors to share videos of police abuse, but also share things like music videos to provide solidarity and morale.
Indymedia Independent Media Center, also known as Indymedia, is a recent development that has helped involve youth into social movement activism. It has also led to the recognition of youth as political actors in the public domain.
Global youth activism Youth activism in the Global South increased in the first years of the 2010s.Jeffrey, C. 2013. Geographies of children and youth III: Alchemists of the revolution? Progress in Human Geography 37(1): 145-152. People under the age of 18 comprise 46% of the global population, and these youth played a crucial role around the world during the first two decades of the twenty-first century.
Africa & Asia
South Africa A classic example of youth engagement in political activism is the Soweto riots. When teachers started instructing in Afrikaans, the language of their oppressors, children took the streets for a peaceful demonstration. The police reaction was brutal and on June 16, 1976, at least 25 people were killed. The violence continued and spread all across the country. By the end of the year, 575 people had died and 2,389 had been wounded.
India In India, youth born in the 1980s and 1990s comprise part of a middle class increasingly vocal against impunity for rapists and against government corruption.Chandrashekar, V. 2013. "Could gang-rape protests mark beginning of an age of activism for India?" The Christian Science Monitor. January 3, 2013. Web. Date Accessed: 2013/03/07.
Indonesia Youth activism in Indonesia takes many different forms and include a number of mass protests to overthrow governments and remove colonial powers in the past. Popular motivations of youth activism in Indonesia are indigenous rights and national unity, pro-communism, anticommunism, pro-democracy and militant Islam. A common form of activism is massa, a cavalcade of motorcycles, trucks, music, and many young people on foot. These cavalcades are mostly males and end with a rally to address a certain political issue. In general, youth have been looking for political change during the last four decades.
Malaysia Video blogging has become increasing popular in Malaysia. Youth activists upload their videos and independent films to the popular site EngageMedia. This is used by Malaysians to encourage young people to become citizen journalists. Youth view EngageMedia as a safe space for their video blogs, but there is still fear of retribution.
Nepal The 1979 student protests in Nepal were a series of protests amongst the student community in Nepal during the months of April and May 1979. The clashes that occurred had a significant historical impact, as they forced the monarchy to concede to holding a referendum on the possibility of a multiparty system in the country. Official figures stated that 11 persons were killed during the agitation, and 164 wounded.