Social media, youth and civil unrest in India: A new rebel's dilemma

Abstract

Social media has received tremendous attention as a tool of revolution since the Arab Spring. Current scholarship predicts that social media can be a threat to internal stability by aiding rebel recruitment and mobilizing them. This article expands this research agenda beyond the Middle East-North Africa region and authoritarian regimes and explains the dynamics of how social media affects contentious politics. Youth bulge is used here as an intervening variable between social media and conflict. Using mixed methods on a sample of 28 Indian states, four Union Territories and 200 educated youth, I find that the presence of educated youth using social media is not a clear threat. Online and offline surveys conducted on Indian youth show that they do not consider social media a useful “technology of revolution” for mobilizing support and thereby bringing about any meaningful change. At best, social media helps in gathering support at the local level like in a neighborhood brawl.