Conference Agenda

The symposium presents results of qualitative research on juvenile politicization on digital platforms in times of uncertainty. Articulations on politics by adolescents and young adults are examined empirically concerning implicit notions of relations of care (Magatti et al. 2019) and temporality (Aswani et al. 2018). We examine concepts of care relations and temporality and analyse transformation processes, especially against the backdrop of the current age of uncertainty, in which modernized societies question fundamental assumptions of development, transmission and continuity (Zilles et al. 2022; Adloff & Neckel 2019). Digital conditions (Stalder 2016) arguably create low-threshold opportunities for social and political participation (Grunert 2022) and transform the access to educational spaces (Jörissen 2020; Stahl & Literat 2022). In this regard, data suggests that adolescents and young adults increasingly use digital media for protest (Literat & Kligler-Vilenchik 2019; McLean & Fuller 2016). Nonetheless, social media also has to be considered in terms of its algorithmic curation based on economic interests, which presents the digital possibilities of connectivity, favours emotional and affective content (Papacharissi 2015) and may lead to discriminatory injustice in visibility - which has direct consequences for political activism online (Etter & Albu 2020; Neumayer & Rossi 2018)

Therefore, the symposium examines political subjectification in the context of digital image platforms, taking into account both the algorithmic structuring as well as the applicable disadvantageous power asymmetries - especially concerning generational order (Liou & Literat 2020; Theodorou et al. 2023). In doing so, we focus on articulations on protest made by adolescents and young adults and analyse implicit political notions of future, present and past. Subsequently, we question the empirical data regarding its inherent utopian potential and concepts of care and temporality. The symposium aims to contribute to the understanding of the modes of political subjectification of adolescents and young adults with special regards to relations of social inequality and underlying concepts of (in)justice as they take shape under the conditions of late modernity and on social media platforms.

Lastly, we examine how the socio-cultural arena, as it is generated via video and image platforms such as TikTok or Instagram, (co-)contours the (in)visibility and significance of certain articulations of care relations and logics of time in the context of the age of uncertainty. By illustrating how visibility and invisibility are shaped by these socio-cultural arenas, the symposium explores how they sculpt and structure discourse on care and temporality. Conclusively the symposium raises questions on the interconnectedness of digital and analogue spheres and their consideration in (educational) research concerning transformative and dynamic societies.

In four lectures, the following questions will be addressed on the basis of four different qualitative research projects in which forms of youth protest in Germany, Spain, Brazil and Switzerland were examined.

The paper seeks to investigate the processes of political subjectivation among young individuals resulting from their engagement in digital image practices. The primary objective is to analyze how young people articulate and negotiate notions of (in)justice in the context of algorithmically structured political utopias and dystopias related to climate change. In particular, we examine concepts (and utopias) of care as they become central to the climate movement, such as transgenerational and transnational care as well as care for nature. We specifically explore how these different modes and concepts of care are articulated via digital media (Liou & Literat 2020). As the climate crisis can also be understood as a generational crisis, temporality and care, respectively generativity (Friberg 2021; King 2022), become closely linked within the activist’ discourse and refer to questions of continuity and transmission, especially within fast-moving digital realms that are mostly frequented by youth and young adults (Literat & Kligler-Vilenchik 2023). Our theoretical framework draws on educational and youth theories, examining how digital image practices influence the thematization of the world and self. The research explores the articulation and negotiation of political ideas and ideals within algorithmically structured contexts, using qualitative analysis of juvenile climate policy articulations on digital platforms. This methodology allows for a nuanced exploration of how young individuals engage in political discourse online, taking into account the algorithmic structures that shape their interactions. By using a qualitative approach, the project aims to uncover the underlying orders of recognition and power dynamics associated with the articulation of political views in digital spaces. The primary data source for this study consists of climate policy articulations by young people on digital image and video platforms such as TikTok or Instagram. The study shows how digital platforms structure political protest in relation to changing concepts of care and time. By understanding the dynamics of social and political participation within these digital spaces, the study aims to reveal opportunities and barriers to access educational spaces and contribute to a broader understanding of (post)digital orders and their implications for education and youth theory. This research therefore contributes to the broader discourse on (in)justice and utopias in an algorithmized society and in an age of uncertainty by presenting the perspectives of young individuals articulated within digital activist spaces.

Friberg, A. (2021): On the need for (con)temporary utopias: Temporal reflections on the climate rhetoric of environmental youth movements. Time & Society, 31(1), 48-68. Literat, I. & Kligler-Vilenchik, N. (2023): TikTok as a Key Platform for Youth Political Expression: Reflecting on the Opportunities and Stakes Involved. Social Media + Society, 9(1). Liou, A. & Literat, I. (2020). „We Need You to Listen to Us”: Youth Activist Perspectives on Intergenerationale Dynamics and Adult Solidarity in Youth Movements. In. International Journal of Communication 14, 4662-4682. King, V. (2022). Generative Verantwortung im Anthropozän. Psyche, 26(12), 1123–1146.

Sub-paper had to be withdrawn.

.

Young people spend their free time on the Internet. This is also the place where they inform themselves about politics, exchange ideas and spend leisure time. Whether the so called “mass media” have an influence on young people's political orientations and interests has been discussed since the 1970s. From today's perspective, media, including the internet, have a place as a fixed political socialization instance, alongside the family, peers and school. The talk examines the relationship between young people’s digital information and communication with politics, especially focusing on the role of humour. It looks firstly at how young people use digital tools and media to discuss, produce and inform themselves or others about politics, but also, what temporality has to do with that. Secondly, it asks what role humour plays in the digital political information and communication of young people, what function it has and what form it takes. This will be connected to the idea of playful caring about others – or not. The talk and its initial idea draw from the empirical material from a research project about politics, participation and biographies of young people in Swiss ("Biographical Experiences and political Engagement" (2023-2026)).

Lütgens, J./Mengilli, Y. (2023): Counter–hegemonic Politics Between Coping and Performative Self-Contradictions. In: Batsleer, J./McMahon, G./Rowley, H. (Hg.): Reshaping youth participation: Manchester in a European Gaze. Emerald Publishing, 99-112. DOI: 10.1108/978-1-80043-358-820221006 McMahon, G./Liljeholm Hansson, S./Von Schwanenflügel/Lütgens, J./Ilardo, M. (2019): Participation Biographies. Meaning–making, Identity–work and the Self. In: Walther, A., Batsleer, J., Loncle, P./Pohl, A. (Hg.): Young People and the Struggle for Participation. Contested Practices, Power and Pedagogies in Public Spaces. London: Routledge, 161–175.

The Spanish indignados movement has often been portrayed as a ’youth movement‘, organized by heretofore rather ‘apolitical’ young people. However, this categorization tends to ignore aspects of political continuities, historical memory, and intergenerational solidarity within the movement. The most telling examples of these aspects are the iaioflautas (in Catalan) or yayoflautas (in Spanish), older indignados activists who define themselves as ‘the generation that fought and achieved a better future for our sons and daughters’ (see their manifesto). This rhetoric of care for the younger generation on the one hand avoids the acerbic right-leftist divisions that characterize post-franquist politics; at the same time, it organizes a generational unit, in Mannheim’s sense. As the only ‘grandparents movement’ to emerge in the European Spring protests, it brings together very experienced activists, some of whom had already organized clandestine resistance under Franco as unionists or members of leftist parties, with political newcomers – older people who had never been politically active before but who can identify with the movement’s framing strategy of intergenerational care in the face of the precariousness of the younger generation. Thus, in recent years yay@ activists with very different backgrounds have regularly been at the frontline of occupations or other anti-austerity protests, marked as yayoflautas by their characteristic yellow vests – and the respective hashtag several times reached the status of trending topic in twitter. Younger indignados activists organized digital literacy workshops for the yayos, teaching them the use of social media for mobilization. In exchange, yayos taught the younger activist forms of clandestine organization and subversion they had employed in their resistance against the Franco dictatorship. And, by passing on such repertoires of contention, the movement last but not least also endowed the younger activists with a political legacy…. Based on campaign material and life story interviews with yayoflautas activists and their younger supporters, this paper discusses intergenerational relationships within the indignados movement, particularly regarding the aspects of care and temporality in times of ‘wired citizenship’ (Herrera 2014).

Herrera, L. (2014). Wired Citizenship. Youth Learning and Activism in the Middle East. Routledge. Schwarz, Ch. (2022). Collective memory and intergenerational transmission in social movements: The “grandparents’ movement” iaioflautas, the indignados protests, and the Spanish transition. In: Memory Studies, 15(1), 102-119.