Social Media: a platform for youth activism?
Youth activism is nothing new. Young people have a history of igniting political change in times of crisis. There are various examples of students harnessing their collective discontent and coming together to demand change and action from the adults in positions of power. The 1960s were a golden age for student movements, in which young people played a vital role in the United States civil rights movement, especially in desegregating schools, lunch counters and buses. Across the world, students moved to demonstrate against the Vietnam War and the collaboration of students and workers in France paralysed the country and nearly brought down the
government in May 1968. In recent years, we have seen Swedish teenage climate-activist Greta Thunberg become the face of a widespread movement for climate change with thousands of young people missing school in support of #Fridaysforfuture. Youth activists are taking the lead not just on climate change but also on gun control, immigration reform and police accountability. So now in 2020, with the physical distancing measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, how are youth activists keeping the momentum going?
As we enter June 2020, a new wave of teenagers and young adults are standing together to show their support for the Black Lives Matter movement. These activists have turned to social media to amplify their voices. Instagram, Twitter and Facebook have become platforms for youth activism as students propagate resources and information for others to become educated about the need to strive for racial justice. Students and young activists are sharing links to petitions, creating templates for emailing authorities and academic institutions, listing bail funds and highlighting black-owned restaurants and businesses in need of support. Young people are using the pandemic as an opportune moment to use technology for their purposes as they connect and organise more rapidly and inexpensively than before. Even the usual lip-sync and dance videos found on TikTok are being replaced by videos offering advice for safe protesting practices or trends listing facts and figures about race and gender inequality set to the latest popular music. TikTok superstars like Charlie D’Amelio, ‘whose 60 million followers is
nearly twice the number of HBO’s U.S. subscribers’ stopped making dance videos and began to raise awareness of the international debate on race and power. Hasan Chowdhury suggested in the Telegraph that, ‘[the
platform] is fast becoming a speakerbox for the political discourse of a new generation.’ Despite the superficial narratives that the younger generations are scared of intimacy and talking on the phone, they are in fact one of the most communicative generations across an array of media.
At the same time, social media platforms have also seen the spread of numerous videos of frustrated young adults crying or arguing with their parents who dismiss their opinions and feelings on important topics. As so many young people are seeking out more ‘uncomfortable’ conversations with the older generations about long-held views on race and privilege, why are adults dismissing their views as naïve, misinformed, brainwashed or
unrealistic? Associate Professor in the Department of Education and Counselling at Villanova University, Jerusha Conner explains that, ‘it may be human nature to want to discredit those whose political ideology differs from our own; when compounded by adultism, that tendency to disparage may become all the more intractable’. There is a proclivity to infantilise and demonise youth activism which leads to a failure to acknowledge that young people’s views can be well-founded, researched and thought out, which stifles young people’s potential to influence social change. Student activists at Yale and the University of Missouri were chastised to ‘grow up’ as critics of youth activism, namely adults, struggled to view young people as equal partners in decision making. Young people’s opinions are often dismissed on the basis that they have been manipulated into saying what they believe, claiming that they are impressionable or unable to analyse issues from multiple perspectives or it is suggested that they struggle to understand the complexity of social problems. Various headlines claiming how Greta Thunberg is being exploited and cruelly manipulated by her parents evidence the widespread belief that young people are incapable of independent political analysis and action. Adults’ false assumptions about young people are regularly reinforced. We are constantly told that children and adolescents are apathetic and lazy, that they are interested only in videogames, social media and their phones.
Perhaps it is this use of social media that leads to more confusion and resentment from adults as the rapid spread of information scares those older generations who are only seeing one perspective of the cause, most often through their newspapers and TV channels. As of Monday, TikTok figures suggested that posts with the Black Lives Matter hashtag tallied 7.7 billion views and despite already having more than two billion downloads, more than 300 million of these came in the first three months of 2020. Hava Gordon, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Denver explains young people’s social-media savvy – and the mind-spinningly fast pace at which a movement grows online – can also alienate some adults, especially as teenagers challenge long-held views on racism and capitalism: ‘We’re seeing a generational and also a racial split’. Young people’s views are often well-researched and well-informed as the technologies used by young citizens are inexpensive and widely accessible when compared to television and print media which are costly and territorially limited. All generations must of course be careful not to believe everything they see online but social media is also a very useful tool when it comes to documenting instances of police brutality at protests and in terms of spreading knowledge
of other cases of injustice which may perhaps not be taken up by major news channels.
Despite the possibility to spread information and gain traction online, youth activists are reliant on adults to see the change they strive for put into action. In the age of social media, according to Levinson: ‘[there is] the risk
that activism will start and end online, and achieve little’. Young people turn to activism because they cannot vote. It is their only means of influencing the political system, protesting, and asking adults in power to do more. The continued widespread determination of young activists is recognised and encouraged however by some adults. On the 1st June, former US President, Barack Obama tweeted: ‘I know the past few months have been hard and dispiriting. But watching the heightened activism of young people makes me hopeful. And if we can keep channelling our justifiable anger into peaceful, sustained, and effective action, this can be the moment when real
change starts.’ Many countries are hesitant to include youth in politics so young people find alternative ways to cope with marginalisation and amplify their voices. Young people are demanding to be leaders today, rather than wait their turn in an elusive future.
Banner image courtesy of dsgetch via Wikimedia, ©2020, some rights reserved.
