Political Participation of Indonesian Youth as A New Society in the Digital Public Spheres

Authors: Prima Roza (Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia)
Speakers: Prima Roza
Strand: Ethnography of Communication
Session Type: General Session

Abstract

In a democratic country, citizen participation is an indicator of the quality of democracy. Political participation is carried out in various aspects of life, holistically and systemically. The better the quality of participation, the better the quality of democracy.The young generation are citizens who are ready to participate in politics in various aspects because they have entered the era of maturity, and are the generation that will color the democratization of a country. In the current era of the advances of information technology, with the availability of a new public space, called the digital public sphere, the younger generation has unwittingly participated in civic politics through this new public space. Political participation in its various forms through various digital platforms, reflects the contribution and participation of the younger generation in the context of democracy. This research will seek to understand how the forms of political participation of the younger generation in Indonesia are developed as a new society, what digital media they use, what are the implications for democratization, and what efforts can be made to reform citizenship learning in responding to the involvement of young citizens in the digital era, to build a civilized democracy. Using quantitative method by observing trending topics in social media and questionnaires among Indonesian university students, this research finds out that the young generation of Indonesia prefer using twitter to other social media to express their political aspiration. The results of this research is useful in measuring the public participation among young generation, the impact of their digital citizenship and providing alternatives in communication with them in the digital public spheres.

Keywords: Political participation, Young generation, Digital age, Digital public Sphere, Digital citizenship, New society