Affiliation:
1. American University of Sharjah, UAE
Abstract
Social media platforms are increasingly used to disseminate political messages resulting in significant increase of political content exposure among youth. However, research has shown that this increase in consumption does not correlate positively with an increased interest in politics. This high exposure versus low interest indicates a certain level of apathy towards political participation. This chapter proposes that in order for youth to experience a stronger engagement in participatory politics, they need to feel challenged and skilled enough to be able to participate effectively in participatory politics by creating political content on digital media platforms. This chapter draws on Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory premise that a state of total absorption, or “flow,” can be attained in a game-like environment in which the actors are highly skilled and the challenges match their skills. The author proposes a framework that relies on a multi-phased ‘skill and challenge' youth training program in a game-like collaborative environment to improve youth participation in politics.
Reference83 articles.
1. Arab media over the past twenty years: Opportunities and challenges;R.Abdulla;The changing Middle East: A new look at regional dynamics,2010
2. The revolution will be tweeted: The story of digital activism in Egypt.;R.Abdulla;The Cairo Review of Global Affairs,2011
3. The concept of flow in collaborative game-based learning
4. Finding high-quality content in social media.;E.Agichtein;Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining,2008
5. Flow Experience and Autotelic Personality in Japanese College Students: How do they Experience Challenges in Daily Life?