“That’s How Revolutions Happen”: Psychopolitical Resistance in Youth’s Online Civic Engagement

Aims: This paper aims to describe forms of online youth civic engagement that center the experiences of youth with historically marginalized identities and documents ways that youth are civically engaged. Demographics: Twenty U.S.-based, digitally active youth ages 16-21 years old were interviewed. Seven participants (35%) identified as female, nine (45%) as male, and four (20%) as gender nonbinary. Twelve (60%) identified as a first or second generation immigrant. Settings: Youth were recruited through youth-led movement accounts on Twitter and contacted via Direct Messaging. Methodology: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with youth between March and September 2020, a period spanning the outbreak of COVID-19 and rise in participation in the Black Lives Matter movement. Analysis: Inductive Constant Comparative Analysis was used to document forms of youth civic engagement on social media and understand how youth ascribed meaning to their civic engagement. Findings: Framed by literature on critical consciousness and psychopolitical resistance to oppression, findings highlight three forms of online youth civic engagement: Restorying, Building Community, and Taking Collective Action. Implications: These findings indicate that, for youth with identities that have historically been marginalized, social media is an important context to be civically engaged in ways that resist oppression and injustice.