Introduction to Youth, digital media, and civic engagement

This thematic issue brings together timely research in global case studies pointing to similarities and differences among youth’s digital civic engagements and activism across different cultural contexts. In so doing, the authors’ contributions point to the intersection of a number of foci in digital studies: youth, digital media, democracy, and public discourse in the digital commons. As a global collaboration, the special issue offers insight into both transnational phenomena and culturally situated perspectives on young people’s digital media use in a time of great change in world democracies. Bringing together case studies from around the world, the issue highlights how youth are increasingly engaging in the digital commons as a form of civic engagement (writ large) along a number of axes. Given the international breadth of authorship, the special issue allows for international comparison of key issues across three sections: civic engagement, mediated activism, and digital rights. The special issue will be of interest to scholars across disciplines and fields including but not limited to digital studies, youth studies, and digital civic engagement.