Redefining Youth Political Participation in the Digital Age of Democracy.

Abstract

The digital world has radically changed the environment of democratic participation especially among the youth. Digital activism, online activism and social media mobilizations are complementing, and in some cases substituting the natural forms of political active participation such as voting, party membership and street demonstrations. The paper examines applications of digital platforms in transforming youth political engagement where young citizens are able to voice their opinion, form movements and control policies without the traditional institutional restrictions. The emergence of social media platforms like Twitter (X), Instagram and YouTube platforms have contributed to the new kinds of participatory democracy in which information sharing, discussion and mobilization are in real-time. Although these platforms provide a platform that gives youth a voice and democratizes access to political discourse, these platforms also have problems like misinformation, digital divides and superficial participation or clicktivism. Based on this, the paper considers how the youths use the electronic spaces to bargain the identity, influence and civic duty by using global and Indian examples to develop the concepts of identity, power and civic duty. In the paper, it is argued that digital participation does not simply complement traditional democracy but instead, it reconfigures the ethos of traditional democracy by decentralising power and transnational activism around issues. The rebranding of youth political engagement in the digital era, finally, is an indication of a paradigm shift to a more participatory, networked and inclusive version of democracy which requires reformulation of conceptualization of engagement, citizenship, and governance in the 21 st century.