(Virtual) Space for Change: Youth Activism on Twitter

Pauls, Monica

(Virtual) Space for Change: Youth Activism on Twitter

dc.contributor.advisor	Adorjan, Michael
dc.contributor.author	Pauls, Monica
dc.contributor.committeemember	Nelson, Fiona
dc.contributor.committeemember	Bakardjieva, Maria
dc.contributor.committeemember	Steinberg, Shirley
dc.contributor.committeemember	Mendes, Kaitlynn
dc.date	2024-11
dc.date.accessioned	2024-05-28T23:04:56Z
dc.date.available	2024-05-28T23:04:56Z
dc.date.issued	2024-05-27
dc.description.abstract	While there are many concerns about the harmful effects of social media use, particularly for young people, engagement in activism and social movements is an area where this form of technology can be particularly beneficial. Social media platforms facilitate new opportunities for political expression and mobilization, and allow young people to operate outside of traditional spaces of political engagement. However, activism that happens online looks quite different from that of previous generations and there is still much to learn about this phenomenon. This research explores the use of social media, specifically Twitter, among a small sample of youth activists, focusing not only on how these activists use Twitter for their work, but also considering the ways in which the platform influences and constructs what is happening online. A modified ethnographic approach was employed using Twitter as the field, which included interviews with youth activists, aged 14 to 24, in the international climate change movement and the American gun control movement. Samples of the participants’ Twitter feeds were also collected. The mixed methodological design allowed for a thematic analysis of the interviews in conjunction with the Twitter data, as well as a social network analysis of the sampled tweets. A social constructivist lens was employed, pulling from a combination of traditional and contemporary theories to further understand youth activism in light of social media. Findings provide insights into what it means to young people to do activism online. This contributes to a definition of activism that includes youth voice, appreciates the connection between online practices and activist identity and, above all else, furthers a counter-argument to critiques of digital activism. The analysis also contributes to our understanding of the relationship between human agency and technological control in virtual spaces by demonstrating the agency youth activists can enact online through their recognition of affordances, their engagement in strategic practices and their navigation of the risks of using social media. Finally, the data helps us reconsider our understanding of collective behaviour in light of social media, with a specific focus on relationships and connections among social movement actors online.
dc.identifier.citation	Pauls, M. (2024). (Virtual) space for change: youth activism on Twitter (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1880/118858
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher.faculty	Graduate Studies
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subject	youth activism
dc.subject	social media
dc.subject	youth social movements
dc.subject	digital activism
dc.subject.classification	Sociology
dc.title	(Virtual) Space for Change: Youth Activism on Twitter
dc.type	doctoral thesis
thesis.degree.discipline	Sociology
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary
thesis.degree.name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
ucalgary.thesis.accesssetbystudent	I do not require a thesis withhold – my thesis will have open access and can be viewed and downloaded publicly as soon as possible.