ABSTRACT

Social media platforms like Twitter are venues for 24/7 political discussion – including deliberation, everyday banter, and bickering. For youth, these platforms offer new opportunities and risks for participation, and suggest corresponding implications for civic education. This qualitative, exploratory study examines how 15 civic youth (ages 15–25) in the United States define and carry out political dialogue on social media platforms. We compare youths’ reported online dialogue strategies with strategies observed in digital artifacts of their posts. Findings suggest that youths’ conceptions of good online dialogue and its key ingredients – knowledge, respect, and diversity – are aligned with their practices in many respects. However, juxtaposing artifacts of youths’ online dialogue threads with reported strategies surfaced disjunctions, related to (1) perceived dialogue style and (2) perceptions of the value of online dialogue. Building on recent studies of novel classroom approaches, this study suggests promising entry points for educators and curricula to support youth to navigate the risks and opportunities of online spaces for civic expression and dialogue.

摘要

像Twitter这样的社交媒体平台是进行24/7政治讨论的场所-包括审议，日常取笑和争吵。对于年轻人而言，这些平台为参与提供了新的机会和风险，并提出了对公民教育的相应启示。这项定性，探索性研究研究了美国15位公民青年（15至25岁）如何在社交媒体平台上定义和进行政治对话。我们将青少年报告的在线对话策略与在其帖子的数字工件中观察到的策略进行了比较。研究结果表明，青年人关于良好在线对话的概念及其关键要素（知识，尊重和多样性）在许多方面与他们的做法保持一致。但是，将青少年的在线对话线索与报告的策略并列放置时，会产生析取关系，与（1）感知的对话风格和（2）对在线对话的价值的感知有关。在对新颖的课堂方法的最新研究的基础上，这项研究为教育者和课程提供了有希望的切入点，以支持青年人探索在线空间进行公民表达和对话的风险和机会。