Youth impact on the public sphere in Press and Twitter: The dissolution of the Spanish Youth Council

 Anna Clua, Barcelona (Spain)

 Núria Ferran-Ferrer, Barcelona (Spain)

 Ludovic Terren, Barcelona (Spain)

https://doi.org/10.3916/C55-2018-05

Keywords

Youth, public sphere, press, Twitter, youth agencies, cyberpolitics, media agenda, citizens’ agenda

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to the study of the difficulties that young people face in accessing the public sphere as political actors. It looks at the Press coverage and the Twitter activity surrounding the restructuring process and the subsequent dissolution of the Spanish Youth Council (Consejo de la Juventud de España - CJE). A content analysis was carried out on the news published in 22 newspapers between 2012 and 2014, as well as on the use of Twitter within the framework of the “Salvemos el CJE” campaign during the same period of time. The main objective of the analysis has been to see the prominence of this issue on both the media and citizens’ agendas. In most newspapers, the measures taken by the government vis-á-vis the CJE were treated as punctual news of peripheral importance. The online campaign, mainly orchestrated by youth grassroots movements, raised the controversy on the biased nature and the political consequences of this plan. The core of the campaign addressed the representation of young people in public institutions. The results of the study suggest that the increased potential for visibility offered by social media is not always maximized and does not necessarily alter the prominence of an issue in the public sphere.

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Fundref

Los datos presentados en este artículo se han obtenido durante una fase inicial del proyecto «Reinventing democracy in Europe: Youth doing politics in times of increasing inequalities» (EURYKA, Reinventando la democracia en Europa: la participación política de la juventud en tiempos de crecientes desigualdades). Este proyecto es financiado por la Comisión Europea en el marco H2020 (con contrato número 727025).

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Technical information

Received: 11-10-2017

Revised: 29-10-2017

Accepted: 04-12-2017

OnlineFirst: 15-02-2018

Publication date: 01-04-2018

Article revision time: 18 days | Average time revision issue 55: 54 days

Article acceptance time: 54 days | Average time of acceptance issue 55: 93 days

Preprint editing time: 127 days | Average editing time preprint issue 55: 161 days

Article editing time: 172 days | Average editing time issue 55: 206 days

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