Mark Anthony Neal looks at how technology and social media are empowering and creating young activists
THE REVOLUTON WILL BE DIGITIZED:
Black Youth and Digital Social Capital
by Mark Anthony Neal | Ebony.com
Whether because of their consumption of hip-hop, sagging or their so-called addiction to television programs like Basketball Wives, contemporary Black youth are often chastised for squandering the political and social gains bequeathed them by the Civil Rights generation. A new study suggest though, that contrary to popular belief, Black youth are on the cutting edge of new forms of participatory politics that may have the capacity to broaden their impact on traditional political practices.
Black political scientist Cathy Cohen (University of Chicago) and Joseph Kahne of Mills College are the lead researchers in the new report, “Participatory Politics: New Media and Youth Political Action” in which a team of researchers surveyed nearly 3,000 youth between the ages of 15-25 about their use of social media and their engagement in participatory politics. The report is part of Youth and Participatory Politics project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation.
The authors describe participatory politics as “acts that are interactive, peer-based, not guided by deference to elites or formal institutions, and meant to address issues of public concern.” Though participatory politics are not solely defined by forms of social media and digital technology, the authors note that social media allows youth to access and mobilize large networks, to “amplify” issues of concern to them, particularly with regards to news coverage, and to remix political content to fit the taste and consumption habits of younger audiences.
In the most traditional sense, social media is premised on the animating of social and political networks. The Greensboro Sit-In of February 1, 1960 and the subsequent “viral” explosion of sit-ins as a political strategy throughout the 1960s is a great example of how such networks can work. However, contemporary social media is unmatched in the speed in which those networks can be energized and in its ability to counter “official” narratives.
