The online citizen-consumer: addressing young people's political consumption through technology

Abstract

With youth, in particular, there are perceptions of declining political interest; at the same time the world where normative democratic ideals were formed is rapidly changing. Globalization results in unclear boundaries between nation states. Consequentially corporations gain power, and advances in online technology make global communication all the more possible. Within such a context, the notion of political consumerism emerges and individual consumption is tied to the concept of citizenship. Young people's interest in non-traditional citizenship along with their strong online presence offers an opportunity to examine how organizations use the internet to address the young citizen-consumer. This paper presents results from a number of in-depth interviews with Web producers of UK-based youth organizations, and provides a look at how these organizations view political consumption in terms of their theoretical outlook and its application to their online presence. It concludes that issue-based campaigns see political consumerism as a new way forward for citizenship while others (those more tied to government) use it as a stepping stone to getting youth involved in more traditional arenas.