Youth Civic Engagement and Communication for Development and Social Change

2035 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Media influence on teenagers

Importance of Youth and Their Civic Engagement

Youth are the national builder, agent of change, and co-constructor of society. Youth play an important role in distributing to democracy of one nation (KAS, 2012). Youth are often considered as a force of creating social change (Wan-Ying, Yong-Chan, Joo-Young, & Cheong, 2005). They are often at the forefront of intergroup conflict, where as front-line warriors in various nations, as perpetrators of Xenophobic violence against immigrants in Germany, as student agitators against alien immigrant to the Indian state of Assam (Youniss, Bales, Chrismas-Best, Diversi, McLaughlin, & Silbereisen, 2002), as the anti-corruption movements in Latin America and Asia, as the protest of school pupils and university students in Chile against the government education policy, and not least, “Arab Spring”, the uprising of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, which it gained worldwide attention (KAS, 2012).

According to United Nations (UN) (2007) World Youth Report, youth defined by the UN as those between the age of 15 to 24, which make up to close to 1.2 billions people of the world population.

Youth’s role in democracy is important, and their civic engagement is one of the key components for exercising their citizenship (UNICEFF EAPRO, 2008). Their participation contributes to the development of communities, economies, governments, and societies (Flanagan & Christens, 2011). Therefore, it is essential to focus on the engagement of youth in civic and political activities. “We should be interested in all those affairs that affect youth and make it politically active,” said Dr. Wilhem Hofmeister, Regional Director of Korad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS, 2012, p.8).

However, there is a general observation...

... middle of paper ...

...h citizens and authorities

Loy9, from these goals, provokes a discussion on social environment where issues are found that legitimize certain behavior. It focuses on who or what responsible for the distracting behavior, rather than target the individual behavior.

Few main problems that affect youth behavior in the report are media institution, which is not validity claim (appropriateness, trust, sincerity, and comprehensibility) and affect to disaffection of youth in understating of civic/political education; commune councils on voter registration where lead to youth behave not to go to vote; and the community service. Thoses are institutions that Loy9 aims to target. Provoking a debate and target to social institution is a feature of Media Advocacy approach (The Rockefeller Foundation, 1997). Thus, it clearly shows that Loy9 project adapts Media Advocacy approach.

Show More
Related

  • 26th Amendment Pros And Cons

    1685 Words  | 4 Pages

    The young people are now able to embrace the constitution and civic education courtesy of the 26th amendment. Most of the 18-year olds become more responsible and start acting as adults who put matters of national concern into great consideration. The young people are able to exchange nationalistic ideas and come up with solutions to some of the matters affecting the nation. The flexibility of the constitution has inspired patriotism especially from the younger generations who identify with it because it is tailored to cater for their ever-changing needs and challenges. Many of the young people are able to participate in measures taken by the government in times of calamity such as hurricanes through volunteering as rescuers or giving contributions to the people affected by such

    Read More

  • Is Voting for Young People? by Martin P. Wattenberg

    1907 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...adults compared to older adults were less likely to respond that voting was extremely important for good citizenship (133). He concludes that it is too late for the generation of young adults that do not feel voting is an important civic responsibility, however, that it is not too late to convince them that politics matter by showing them that they are giving their opportunity to make important decisions that may impact their lives to others who have different ideas. One may agree with Wattenberg’s idea that habits follow people throughout their lives instead of changing as they cycle in life. His personal accounts are an impactful way to illustrate the importance of building a sense of duty at a young age and carrying that responsibility throughout one’s life.

    Read More

  • Commentary on The Good Citizen: How a Younger Generation Is Reshaping American Politics by Russell J. Dalton

    1055 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many political analysts argue that engagement is an important characteristic of democracy, yet the younger generation is indifferent towards politics. They’re more interested in the latest iPhone technology than in campaigning or voting. In The Good Citizen: How a Younger Generation Is Reshaping American Politics, author Russell J. Dalton counters this with the idea that Gen X’ers are still engaged, just in a different way.

    Read More

  • Youth Voter Turnout in Canada

    878 Words  | 2 Pages

    Out of all Canadian age groups, the voter turnout for young voters is the most disappointing. In specific today’s youth are less likely to vote, less interested in politics, and know less about politics compared to all other Canadians. This brings about a great deal of concern, as young people are the future of this country, and are expected to uphold the expectations put on them by their older counterparts. Youth are still being affected by the consequences brought about by politics; they still go to school, get jobs, get sick, and so forth, so why is it that they feel indifferent?

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Rock And Roll Today And 1950's

    1392 Words  | 3 Pages

    As a result of the new changes, the teenagers had more freedom than before and also had more time to spend with their colleagues. This situation resulted in antagonism between them and their parents. The teenagers were then branded “juvenile delinquents” (Sagolla 163) by the media as a result of the trouble they took their parents through.

    Read More

  • The Deep Democracy In America Summary

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is our civic right and duty to actively participate in governmental affairs. This recent election really highlighted the divide in opinion regarding the importance of governmental participation. “To many, our democratic system seems so broken that they have simply lost faith that their participation could really matter,” West writes in his essay entitled The Deep Democratic Tradition in America. Young people feel unimportant and irrelevant, which explains the lack in turnout from young voters ages 18-29. However, it wasn’t just young voters that didn’t turnout. Millions of eligible voters didn’t show up for the 2016 elections. A democracy without active participants is a democracy bound for

    Read More

  • Demonization Of Youth

    698 Words  | 2 Pages

    The analyst analyses the process of development of the attitude and social stigma attached to youth and then makes reverse action for delinking youth with demonization. When youth is demonized in terms of crime they tend to align themselves with one stereotype of social values and move away from other but more necessary social values (Goldson and Muncie, 2009). Moreover, the highlighting of youth in mass media also makes these youth confined to their negative roles as mass media makes these criminals more important and psychologically they tend to attract the immediate attention they receive. The attention may be for the wrong reasons but the criminals interpret it as different and consider it as fame and glory. The policy analyst needs to identify the political motivation behind demonizing youth into criminals and attend to the specific belief to address the rise of such illegitimate magnification. The juvenile system of care and welfare has been taking new forms and gets demanded to be renewed as the old efforts have not been able to curb the recurrence of juvenile and youth crimes (Musto, 2002), but has in fact segregated the rich and poor even terms of equal treatment. These factors of wilful and policy motivated practices of segregation further leads the

    Read More

  • The American Education System; Cause For Rebellion

    1454 Words  | 3 Pages

    success of America will be in the hands of youth to unprecedented extent. It is

    Read More

  • Teen Activism Challenges

    662 Words  | 2 Pages

    Have you ever overcome any challenges or obstacles? Well that is what a teen activist have to do. While teen activists are fighting for their causes they come up against groups that try to stop them. These groups use both physical and mental violence against the activists. Those are some challenges and obstacles that teen activism overcome. A teen activist is when a teen helps make changes in the world or make differences in the world.

    Read More

  • Juvenile Homelessness Essay

    3244 Words  | 7 Pages

    Youth Action Advocacy and Policy Association n.d., About Youth Action, YAPA, Sydney, viewed 21 March 2014, http://youthaction.org.au/about/.

    Read More

  • A Single Youth Culture

    1738 Words  | 4 Pages

    Defining 'youth' can be difficult and is described in the Concise Oxford Dictionary as: "the state of being young, the period between childhood and adult age" - Oxford Dictionary (1990). This would indicate that youth is described as an age group and people can be distinguished by the different age groups. However, it could be questioned that not all children stop being children at the same time. Frith describes youth as "not simply an age group, but the social organization of an age group" Sociologists of youth, according to Frith, describe youth culture as "the way of life shared by young people". Subculture, as defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, is a 'cultural group within a larger culture often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture'.

    Read More

  • Juvenile Crime

    901 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...hreat – indeed, one study found that 71 per cent of media stories about young people were negative and a third of articles concerned the issue of crime. The consequence of this intense focus on young people’s behaviour is that they are faced with the challenge of growing up in a culture that has widespread negative perceptions of youth.

    Read More

  • The Transition of Youth into Adulthood.

    1730 Words  | 4 Pages

    Youth of today are taking longer to complete the transition into adulthood compared to youth of twenty-five years ago. Changes in education and the benefit system may be responsible for the altered state of transition in current youth (Keep, 2011) which is an assumption that will be explored. In regards to this; this essay will cover youth transition and will look at how the restructuring of polices and legislations have affected youths transition in to adulthood. Furthermore the manner in which political ideologies and perspectives have altered factors such as education, employment, housing and benefits will be examined. Once a full explanation has been provided; the fundamental question that needs to be answered is; are the teenagers of today embattled or empowered?

    Read More

  • Causes and Effects of Social Problems among Teenagers

    563 Words  | 2 Pages

    Nowadays there are so many news regarding social problem involving youngster. In fact it has become a norm to read articles about teenagers’ issue. We should realize that problem involving young generations is actually a huge problem to the nation as they will become our leader. Early prevention is better than cure, thus we need to identify the reason why this problem is happening and what are the consequences from this teenager social problem.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Spoken Word

    1146 Words  | 3 Pages

    “We 're channeling the voices of the next generation to speak for themselves about what they want the world to become. In spite of everything--war, the economy, environment--youth have a

    Read More

More about Youth Civic Engagement and Communication for Development and Social Change

Open Document