Social networks in digital culture: perception, participation and mobilisation

Abstract

Social networks should be approached as a form of communication that has the capacity to favour communication between young people and help their integration and participation in active social life. With this starting point, an empirical research was launched in collaboration with the social network Tuenti, whose objectives are focused, firstly, on knowing the degree of impact that social networks have on the active social participation of young people, i.e. how social networks are the tool for the online/offline social mobilisation of young people; secondly, and given the social concern in this regard, the research tries to analyse the perception of privacy/security that young people have of social networks such as Tuenti or Facebook.

The repercussions and the potential, both positive and negative, that the use of these social networks can have leads the empirical study presented here to propose a first hypothesis: the perception of the networks as a safe environment for communication and active participation increases young people's own participation in the networks.

Observation of reality and the different studies on the subject show that other variables that encourage young people to active social mobilisation as a result of participation in social networks must be taken into account. Thus, the second hypothesis of the study suggests that involvement in social and civic activities motivated by social networks also depends on factors such as the user's proximity or empathy with the situation. In order to empirically measure the attitudes and perceptions of young social network users, an online survey distributed through the social network Tuenti was used.