activism

Originally posted on Jan. 19, 2016

In every election cycle, news stories tout the potential of online activism to engage people who have historically been less engaged in offline politics – particularly young people, women, and people with less education and income. Could this be true? If so, there would be new possibilities for enlarging American democracy – in an age when one in three eligible U.S. adults skips voting in presidential elections and two thirds of potential voters fail to show up in midterm elections.

But what if online activism mainly offers ways for citizens who are regularly politically active offline to amplify their already loud voices? In that case, online political opportunities would largely reinforce existing political inequalities.

Using national data on Americans who engage in various types of online and offline political participation, our research examines the evidence about these competing “new mobilization” and “reinforcement” perspectives on the impact of online activism. more...

Images of “student activism” often bring to mind leftist anti-war protests at Berkeley and Kent State. But across America today, conservative youth are active on many campuses, running newspapers and working through groups of College Republicans or Students for Liberty. Conservatives are active even at institutions with strong liberal reputations – the ones denounced as “indoctrinators” of students by pundits like David Horowitz.

Our research on conservative student activism pinpoints two different styles that tend to predominate in different clusters of institutions. A flamboyantly provocative style flourishes primarily at large state universities and lesser-known liberal arts colleges, while a more traditional “civilized discourse” style of conservative engagement predominates at leading private universities.  Each style is encouraged by its own set of national advocacy organizations. more...