#youthaction

A volume in Adolescence and EducationSeries Editor Ben Kirshner University of ColoradoSocial media and digital tools permeate the everyday lives of young people. In the earlystages of commentary about the impact of the digital age on civic life debates revolvedaround whether the Internet enhanced or discouraged civic and political action. Since thenwe have seen new media move to center stage in politics and activism--from the 2008 USelection to the 2011 Arab Spring to the Occupy movement. We have also seen new patternsin how different sub-groups make use of digital media. These developments havepushed people to move beyond questions about whether new media are good or bad forcivic life to ask instead: how under what conditions and for whom do new digital tools become resources for political critiqueand action by the young?This book will provide a platform for a new wave of scholarship about young people's political participation in the digitalage. We define youth or young people as roughly between the ages of 12 and 25. We include perspectives from politicalscience education cultural studies learning sciences and youth development. We draw on the framework developedby the MacArthur Research Network on Youth and Participatory Politics (Cohen Kahne Bowyer Middaugh &Rogowski 2012) which defines participatory politics as interactive peer-basedacts through which individuals and groups seek to exert both voice and influence onissues of public concern.