VERDIKT conference 2012.

1. Young participation: Social
Web for societal involvement
VERDIKT-konferansen 2012
Petter Bae Brandtzæg, SINTEF
Twitter: @PetterBB
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2. How can we support young people in civic
engagement by the use of social media?
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3. Content
• Why young people?
• What is civic engagement online?
• Opportunities and challenges
• How many young people are politically active
online and is this number increasing?
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4. Why youth?
• Young people are understood as crucial agents
with regard to peace processes and political
stability on a local and global scale (Tufte &
Enghel, 2009)
• Nearly all young people (15-30 years) in
Norway use Facebook or other kinds of social
media. The majority do this daily (digital
natives).
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5. Younger people more active in politics
at Facebook

6. Defining new participation
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7. Connections
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8. Free information
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9. delTA 9

10. ”We use Facebook to
schedule the protests,
Twitter to coordinate, and
YouTube to tell the world.”
Source: The Cascading Effects of the Arab Spring
http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/the-cascading-effects-of-the-arab-spring-28575/
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11. But, can we simply……
?
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12. Online political activity: ”slactivism”
• Pointless showcasing that does more to make
the activist feel good about themselves, than
to address urgent political matters
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13. The Facebook event page showed over 21,000 people attending.
Millions of tweets from around the world.
About 17 people met downtown to put up posters throughout the downtown core,
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14. Rubbish
• Some argue that political activity online tend
to involve a destructive and nihilistic quality,
which make it hard to take it seriously
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15. Possibilities Challenges
Free, cheap and effective way to bring “Slactivisme”
peoples voice out, to participate
More debate/more people can debate Destructive/nihelistic, thus only some
people would like debate
Fast mobilization /organizing groups Low commitment over time
Bring new voices into the public sphere. The active people online are the same
Motivate new people to participate and that are active offline (digital divide). Will
get involved in political issues not reach a mass audiences
Online activity Not offline activity ?
Internet activism (political activity online) Replacing traditional political activity
(thereby leading to lower level of
participation)
Easy to set up of Internet campaigns Does internet campaigns have any effect ?
Increase awareness of political issues Information overload
Diverse sources of information Echo chambers
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16. • Why are young people using these social
networking sites?
– Are social networking sites (SNSs) usage associated with
political participation?
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17. ”What is your most important
reasons for using a social networking site?”
N = 4,417
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18. How many of 4,417 youth mentioned
politics?
Zero
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20. This was way back in 2007…but are
.... political participation in SNSs increasing over
time?
Longitudinal study (N = 2000)
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21. How often are you using social
networking sites to political activity?
2008
14% (10%)
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22. Social networking sites to political
activity?
2009
13% (9 %)
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23. Social networking sites to political
activity?
2010
13% (9 %)
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24. Why?
• SNS-not a space for political action: Social networking sites are still
mostly a socializing activity, friends and family members. They
might not want to mix friends with political action. (e.g. Storsul, et
al., 2008)
• Too new (short period of time): Social networking sites are quite
new, and it’s hard to identify a significant effect over such a short
period of time
• Dissatisfied: Norwegian youth are in Europe the most eager users
of Internet, but also the those that shows most dissatisfaction with
the online services (Livingstone, et al., 2011)
• Broad engagement: Not all are conscious about actions that they to
are political actions
However, we might see a change after 22.07?
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25. References
Brandtzæg, P.B., & Heim, J. (2009). Why people use social networking sites.
Proceedings of the HCI International. (pp. 143–152). In A.A. Ozok and P. Zaphiris
(Eds.): Online Communities, LNCS. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, San Diego,
CA, USA, 19-24 July
Brandtzæg, P.B., Lüders, M., & Skjetne, J. H. (2010). Too many Facebook “friends”?
Content sharing and sociability versus the need for privacy in social network sites.
International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 26(11), 1006 – 1030
Christensen, H. (2011). Political activities on the Internet: Slacktivism or political
participation by other means? First Monday, Volume 16 Number 2, Tilgjengelig.
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3336
Livingstone, S., Haddon, L., Görzig, A., and Ólafsson, K. (2011). Risks and safety on the
internet: The perspective of European children. Full Findings. LSE, London: EU Kids
Online, London
Storsul, T., H. C. Arnseth, et al. (2008). Nye Nettfenomener. Staten og delekulturen,
Instiutt for medier og kommunikasjon & Forsknings- og kompetansenettverk for IT
i utdanning, UiO. Tilgjengelig: http://www.itu.no/Nye+nettfenomener+-
+Staten+og+delekulturen.9UFRjYZd.ips
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