Inclusion of Youth Digital Media and Communications for Peace Education: Conceptualizing Intergenerational Social Media Discourse in Peace

This paper examines the capacity of intercultural youth digital media as a tool for inclusive peace education. Building on scholarship in media-based pedagogy and digital communities as a site for participatory discourse, this paper considers how fictional digital narratives may be disentangled to illustrate nuanced concepts in peace building. A selected case example of Shingeki no Kyojin is selected for analysis baked on: global-scale engagement to cultivate empathy; multimodal immersion, which presents abstract ethical issues more accessible to younger audiences; in addition to its generation of massive intercultural and intergenerational discourse, amplified by social media participation and youth-produced derivative content. The divergent interpretations youth-animation inspires simulate real-world peacebuilding challenges, positioning online youth discourse as a form of experiential learning. Rather than dismissing emotionally charged debates as toxicity, the paper reframes them as opportunities to cultivate dialogue, critical reflection, and empathy within peace education contexts. The resulting analysis focuses on three key principles in trauma-informed pedagogy, Freirean critical revelation, and the dignity of life in conflict. By guiding youth to critically assess their own self-selected popular culture engagements, there exists the possibility that peace educators can leverage new opportunities to foster dialogue and peacebuilding practices. A preliminary four-part framework of peace-pedagogy based on youth digital media concludes the study.