Rethinking revolution: American youth and political subjectivity

Abstract

Although American youth are generally perceived by their elders as disengaged from “real life” and uninterested in political activity, new research on youth, social media and public life is reshaping how one might consider American young people's engagement with participatory politics. Utilizing a focus exploring the relation between political subjectivity and its historical construction through the mainstream news media, this essay suggests that contemporary American young people can be perceived not only as politically engaged but capable of ‘revolutionary’ activity, adopting Michael Hardt's nuanced understanding of that term. Recent studies by scholars connected with the MacArthur Research Network on Youth and Participatory Politics, studies undertaken by the Pew Research Centers, and others point to alternative modes of political participation and social engagements that indicate how young people reimagine and document their sense of participation in public – including political – life and culture. Informed by Louis Althusser's concept of interpellation as a key point of departure in addition to Hardt, the discussion draws on the work of political scientist Edward P. Morgan on cultural memory and media; media theorist John Hartley's critique of neo-liberal journalism; and Alain Badiou's articulation of universal singularity as a new paradigm for subjectivity. Through this multi-faceted lens, American youth activity (demonstrated by new kinds of community-based media projects, internet campaigns, Occupy protests, transgender actions and more) may be signaling a different register of political subjectivity, one not available to conventional journalism through its usual neo-liberal frame.