Social media and youth civic engagement in a crisis

Written for and presented at the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Education and Innovation for Development Conference, Bangkok, 2014.

Christchurch as a crisis context

Between September 2010 and June 2011 Christchurch, New Zealand, was struck by three devastating earthquakes. 189 citizens lost their lives, $40 billion dollars of damage was sustained and the city’s physical infrastructure and social facilities, including schools, were left in ruins. As a result, many teachers appropriated the powerful learning opportunities available through the city’s disaster response and recovery activities, and young people had the chance to make a meaningful contribution towards the redevelopment and future function of their city. The possibilities for youth civic engagement were unprecedented at this time, and it was therefore critical that teachers were prepared to utilize the associated civic learning and development potential available to them. Informed by the author's own role in post-quake Christchurch as a youth facilitator for The New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO, this paper investigates the role of social media as an important educational tool for negotiating the post disaster challenge, catalyzing youth civic engagement, and consolidating youth innovation and leadership for the implementation of future disaster response and recovery processes.

It is with a spirit of optimism and possibility that teachers should support youth-led solutions to contemporary social challenges. This aspiration is most apparent when applied in contexts of crisis. In the eastern suburbs of Christchurch, where educational achievement is well below the national average and dependency on government social services is high, an acute sense of isolation and vulnerability was experienced in the aftermath of Christchurch’s earthquakes. Compared to more affluent suburbs, there was a greater reliance on emergency provisions for day to day survival. People struggled to process the sequence of events which took place and as a culture of fear and speculation spread, teachers often became young people’s trusted resource for filtered and up to date facts. In lieu of operational classrooms, students found their teachers online; this provided an opportunity to connect, engage, and plan a collective response to the situation at hand. With school buildings closed, virtual classroom communities evolved and in many instances these spaces were student initiated. Unfortunately though, this was an uncommon occurrence as only a handful of teachers fully embraced this opportunity; thus, too few students gained from the learning and youth focused civic engagement initiatives available at this time. Consequently, this paper’s core proposition focuses on our need to imagine a future where teachers in crisis contexts have the capability and confidence to use digital spaces for the activation and leadership of grassroots youth civic engagement in their schools.

Mixed messages

At the time of the Christchurch Earthquakes, global headlines connecting social media and youth civic action included the Arab Spring student protests across North Africa and the Middle East (Beaumont, 2011; Rosen, 2011; Schillenger, 2011) and the Youth Riots in London, England (Gentleman, 2011;  McKenzie, 2011; Apps 2011). These headlines delivered a mixed sense of awe and angst regarding social media’s influence in crisis contexts. Locally, commentators were holding social media platforms accountable for an increase in school-yard bullying, youth suicide, and a proliferation of antisocial behavior in our communities (Barback, 2012; Johnson, 2011). Other headlines, however, celebrated the benefit of social media platforms to individual citizens and their communities. For example, the University of Canterbury’s Student Volunteer Army, who used Facebook to mobilize over 10,000 students for the clean-up of post-quake Christchurch, demonstrated the efficacy of social media and online mapping tools in youth-led post-disaster response and recovery activities (Cairns, 2011).

In the disorder and loss of the post-disaster context, prior understandings of our systems and standards for youth civic engagement were laid bare. With the closure of essential public institutions such as schools and the disruption of vital infrastructure, we were dependent on the capacity of our communities, grassroots initiatives, and civil society organizations to provide leadership and protection. Betwixt and between, young people were vulnerable to social redundancy, despite the potential energy and creativity that they contribute to such contexts (MacDonald, R. 1997; MacDonald and Marsh, 2001). It is through this possible redundancy that the ways in which we prioritize youth civic engagement can be challenged, and it is upon a critique of past outcomes and our current culture that the premise of this paper is formed. That is, the community’s encouragement of or opposition to youth-led civic engagement and grassroots actions at times of crisis allows our collective culture of civic engagement to be critically explored and enacted.

Youth and social media: A complex space

Historically, advocates for social media as a tool for improved youth civic engagement have faced significant critique. Negative commentary has focused on young people’s absorption in social networks and their perceived addiction to online entertainment. Critics believe that engagement in these activities separates young people from roles of responsibility in the real world; and as such, many classroom teachers react by restricting young people’s access to the source of their perceived addiction (Ito et al, 2009). Efforts to increase the use of social media as a pedagogical tool and topic of learning have been set back by pathologizing narratives associated with polemic topics such as teen sexuality, youth suicide, bullying, or substance abuse (Caplan, S. 2007; Guan, S. Subrahmanyam, K. 2009; Hills, M 2014). 

A prominent critic of young people and their access to technology is Emory University Professor Mark Bauerlein (2009).  His book, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, traces a disturbing correlation between the rise of mass digital technology and the documented educational deficits of young Americans. Bauerlein (2009) reveals a damning paradox: even as technology gives younger people greater access to knowledge, enrichment, and information than ever before, it has become the tool that youth have used to seal themselves off from the world. He claims that technology has contracted young people’s horizons to themselves and believes that the insular online world of the social network is “an ego-centric echo chamber” which is simply self-reinforcing and self-referential (Bauerlein, 2009). In an attempt to mask their own technological inadequacy, he also theorizes that teachers neglect the opportunity to provide meaningful mentoring and learning support as they keep a self-protective distance. Bauerlein (2009) contends that young people’s digital savvy conceals a deplorable lack of skill, so effectively, in fact, that their comparatively technophobic teachers have been fooled into complacency.

A more optimistic narrative has also emerged, countering the popular perspectives circulating regressive media streams and school staff rooms. These narratives reveal that a partnership between young people, teachers, and social media tools presents an opportunity to increase learning engagement, promote cross-cultural interaction, facilitate grassroots civic action and stimulate the development of critical thinking skills. University of California Professor Mizuko Ito (2008) sees social media as a self-sponsored and peer-centric enterprise. She writes that young people’s engagement in social media should be “celebrated as evidence of identity enactment, social interaction, and creativity through their uptake and transformation of newly available digital means” (Ito et al 2008, cited in Hull, Stornaiuolu and Sahni, 2010. p334). Luke and Luke (2001) state that “far from being isolated techno-subjects marooned in their bedrooms and pacified by the soporific effect of wall to wall media … many of today’s children and young people have the resources for more widespread interaction and cultural production than any other generation” (cited in Merchant 2009, p114). What these statements present is the idea that with the support of teachers, social media is not something to be controlled or mitigated in formal education settings. Instead, it is a tool with which we can improve educational experiences and extend the quality and depth of young people’s civic engagement. 

Flanagan and Levine (2010) write that new digital media has several advantages for civic participation. “Barriers to entry are low, communities of interest are diverse and numerous, and peers can recruit one another for service activities even if they are physically dispersed” (p173). Furthermore, as highlighted by Warren and Wicks (2011), social media encourages inter-generational communication and cross-cohort interaction for the purposes of civic engagement. In this instance, appropriately facilitated engagement in social media forums enhances a young person’s social capital (Putnam, 2001; Bourdieu, P 2011) within their own community and beyond borders. Warren and Wicks (2011) also reveal that “interpersonal or online interaction among members of a social system including parents, teens, teachers, friends and acquaintances energizes a social network which leads to greater rates of participation within the system” (p167).

Getting teachers online

As ‘digital immigrants’ many teachers lack the formative experiences that acquaint them with the digital platforms their students, ‘digital natives’, are fluent in (Prensky, 2001). This leaves teachers not only ill-prepared to introduce social media in classroom spaces, it also means they struggle to appropriately mentor their “students on safe and ethical engagement with the online world” (Jenkins and Losh 2012, p18). Knobel and Lankshear (2008) identify two mind sets that teachers have of the world in relation to technology; one is that the world is very much the same as it always has been, however it is now more technologically sophisticated. The other mind set recognizes that the world is different and has changed as a result of digital technologies. We need to support teachers to understand that new technology in the classroom helps affect change in learners’ worlds and it allows “teachers to be more collaborative and social, as it is multimodal, and it helps teachers grow projects organically from the authentic needs of their students” (Knobel and Lankshear. 2008, p23).

Greene (1995) proposes that “if teachers truly want to provoke our students to break through the limits of the conventional … we ourselves have to experience breaks with what has been experienced in our lives, we have to keep arousing ourselves to begin again (in Meyer 2011, p26). To ‘begin again’ suggests that teachers must abandon the safety of traditional modes and create new spaces for learning and civic engagement. A significant barrier, however, is the risk aversion associated with current regimes of high-stakes testing and teacher performance appraisal in schools (Agrey, L. 2004; Kohn, A. 2000). Although it seems counter-intuitive to omit a powerful learning resource and engaging communication tool for young people, the pressure-cooker climate of modern schooling rarely accommodates experimentation and error.

The post-disaster context is a space whereby norms are disrupted, the status quo is contested, and the classroom becomes ad hoc or informal depending on the functionality of the school and availability of teachers. With a focus on psycho-social wellbeing, best-practice recommendations suggest that the role of the teacher in crisis contexts is to construct the nearest sense of normalcy and routine possible (Davies and Talbot 2008; INEE, 2010; Kagawa, 2005). However, it can also be a time for collaborative leadership and experimentation between teachers and learners (Henderson, 2016). In this context teachers have the power to establish new possibilities for learning spaces and this includes the introduction of social media as a tool for youth civic engagement.

There is a strong argument for the urgency of teacher preparedness and engagement in social media technologies (Pegrum, 2011). Researchers agree that the risks of not conforming to new modes of civic engagement outweigh the retention of traditional norms. Young people now live in an information rich world where digital media is ubiquitous; as Gammon and White (2011) state, we are in a “cultural climate increasingly defined by the collaborative and networked technologies of the internet. This new context demands increased recognition from educators about the skills and strategies that students need in order to become skilled, responsible and engaged citizens” (Gammon and White 2011, p344). Wankel (2011) supports this observation. Echoing notions of youth agency and active learning, he states that the importance of “new and emerging technologies in education cannot be underestimated. Using social media presents a more innovative experience that engages students in the process of their own learning rather than making them knowledge databases or receptacles” (Wankel, 2011, p84).

The hesitance with which teachers embrace young people’s use of new technologies presents a starting point for social media in classroom spaces. Jenkins and Losh (2012) point out that “many young people today reach large audiences via blogs and social media, yet lack mature and knowledgeable mentors who might be able to give them advice on how to navigate the largely uncharted waters of online social relationships.” (p18) Teachers can therefore encourage and support students’ development of 21st century literacies, which are “the technological competencies and the values, knowledge and dispositions needed to participate confidently and critically in local and global worlds” (Hull et al 2010, 331).

Social media also presents opportunities for the development of what the OECD (2016) refers to as ‘global competencies’. In crisis contexts local and global forces collide. Regarding the involvement of international aid agencies and a disaster’s connection to other countries or global trends, or the extent to which local authorities and civil society organizations respond to grassroots needs, young people are often peripheral observers to the most formative events of their lives. In this instance “nothing is more important than giving our youth the tools to face what’s happening in the world, to understand it, and to have the critical perspectives and confidence to be a part of changing it” (Meyer 2011, p26). This is where teachers, learners and social media come together. It is about supporting young people as they move from the periphery of disaster response and into the center of the rich learning and decision making processes available through improved civic engagement (Camino & Zeldin 2002).

Youth as agents of change

Youth today are ascribed with monikers such as Generation TXT, Generation 2.0, and Generation Wired. We need to redefine the way in which we interpret the role of digital technologies in civic engagement and associated grassroots activities; a more agentic civic identity for youth is urgently required. As the following discussion highlights, democratic communities need increased youth participation as means of securing the future health of their democracy. Moreover, society needs to recognize that civic engagement is not confined to town halls or grown within the four walls of a classroom. With increasing frequency, social media spaces now accommodate debate and action planning for public good, too.

The benefit of young people’s creative engagement in civil society is well recognized (Allen, Kahne & Middaugh 2014; Wheeler & Edlebeck 2006).  Too often though we discuss young people’s civic participation as a means of nurturing or preparing them for future public responsibilities. Within this conceptual framework, preparedness is seen as a developmental endeavor and not an essential part of current civic processes. Despite this sentiment, research still establishes a need for youth participation from the perspective of our communities’ future democratic wellbeing. For example, Warren and Wicks (2011) write that “societies need to encourage political and civic engagement among young citizens because they will become future political and social leaders. Citizens who are politically and civically engaged will have a long term impact on society” (p157). Adding to this, Flanagan and Levine’s (2010) research asserts that “young adults who identify with, have a stake in, and want to contribute to their communities can help stabilize democratic societies by directing their discontent into constructive channels. They can also be a force for change; bringing new perspectives on political issues, and they can offer fresh solutions” (p180).

Grassroots actions that enhance citizenship competencies in young people “include participating in community activities, volunteering, and other forms of civic life, such as working with charitable causes” (Warran and Wicks. 2011, p158).  It is about challenging young people to see themselves as empowered stakeholders and this can only be achieved “through accumulated opportunities to be involved in groups that build civic identities and skills” (Flanagan and Levine. 2010, p168). These opportunities allow for important constructive and functional understandings of civic engagement and fulfil a need to belong. Through grassroots activities “young generations come to appreciate their identities as members of the public” (Flanagan and Levine. 2010, p173). The outcomes of these processes, which include improved self-conceptualization, thinking skills, communication skills, and other organizational competencies, establish a life-long disposition for meaningful participation in civic affairs.

Advocacy for the importance of social media and other digital technologies centers on the idea of participatory culture (Allen et al 2014). A key methodology for citizenship based learning is participation in community service, including engagement in planning and critical reflection processes. As such, with the disrupted norms of crisis contexts teachers have an advantageous starting position for the development of participatory cultures through their work; “schools have long been viewed as incubators of democratic participation… classrooms that foster discussion, encourage community projects, and utilize the use of the internet to increase levels of knowledge, affiliation and engagement” (Warren and Wicks. 2011, p160). Reinforcing this point, Merchant (2006) champions the benefit of partnering technology and classroom learning for the promotion of participatory culture, writing that “participatory culture stresses collaborative or collective experience and as such holds considerable appeal for those educators who prize joint enterprise and espouse a communitarian ideology” (p119).

Imagining the future

This paper advocates for the incorporation of social media in crisis context classrooms not as a trial of recent trends, but as an authentic pedagogical approach for the development of improved youth civic engagement and long-term civic participation. Moving forward, it is worth considering how social media can be included as a formalized tool for youth engagement in key documents and recommendations, such as the international Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies (INEE 2010).

Given the ubiquity of digital technologies, even in the Global South and emerging economies (especially the BRICS), the impetus is on government ministries as well as policy-centric institutions such as UNESCO, OECD, and the World Bank to initiate the development and distribution of guideline resources for teachers’ use of social media as a pedagogical tool in crisis contexts. Such resources, however, cannot exist in isolation or represent a top-down approach. Teachers’ skills, experiences, realities and fears as ‘digital immigrants’ need to be accounted for. As does the expertise and worldview of ‘digital native’ youth (Prensky, 2001). Civic centered classrooms, with social media as a key learning, communication, and innovation tool, are a significant departure from the norm in multiple crisis contexts. Teachers require the systems, freedoms, confidence, and competencies to lead new ways of engaging youth in grassroots civic action. They also need a collaborative mindset; young people can be teachers’ partners in progress, navigators of change, and co-creators of new spaces for youth civic engagement and grassroots actions in times of change.

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