From a conventional
theoretical perspective on political science, technological media is considered
a powerful inductor of young citizen’s attitudes and behavior. The Internet is
generating an environment where new forms of social interaction between
politics and society take place. These tools were widely used by Brazilian
youth in protests against the government in July 2013. Could this be the
beginning of a new process of political socialization? I believe that this new
media technology is structuring new collective identities and some forms of political
sophistication among the youth. I hypothesize that this type of political
involvement, taking into account the type of youth’s political culture, does
not contribute for the construction of a new sense of citizenship among the
young citizens. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the effect of
the use of Internet in the political socialization process of the youth (13 to
24 years old) in the South of Brazil. The data utilized is the result of a
survey research conducted from March 2015 to April 2016 with 1964 adolescents
in public and private high schools selected through multi- stage probabilistic sampling. The questionnaire consisted of 70% of
structured questions and 30% of open questions. The results showed among the
young citizens a conformism which results from a feeling of impotence, of not
being capable of doing something to change things, and hostility with the
political institutions that do not provide equal opportunities for
participation for the youth. Furthermore, it is argued that the use of Internet
has not had a significant impact in the construction of another type of youth’s
political culture.
Cite this paper
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