hrvatski

Online Media and Potential for Civic Action Among the Adolescents in Croatia

Exposure of children and young people to various sources of information and availability of online networking tools are increasing in a manner that is hard to measure. Online sources are a potential tool for education, raising awareness of the social values and issues faced by members of a community or a society in general. Young people embrace certain values and behaviours towards their peers and members of the society at a relatively early age. At the same time, data show that young people (aged 15-29) in Croatia are inclined to use an online social sphere in a relatively private manner and rarely for undertaking actions that would have impact on a society outside their narrow community. Currently, Croatia is at the verge of social transformations, with a very strong re-traditionalisation in social and political domains and with economic indicators that are far from recovery. A successful democratic consolidation of post-socialist societies also depends on the democratic potential of the younger generations. In such a context, it is of the utmost importance to obtain insights into the development of democratic potential and peer and civic actions among adolescents, who will be the leading force in social transformations in the next decades. This paper aims at inter- connecting insights from the longitudinal surveys conducted in Croatia in 1999, 2004, 2013 and 2018 on the samples of 1.500 young people (aged 15-29), with the results of the EU Kids Online survey conducted in Croatia in 2017 on a sample of 710 adolescents (aged 12-17) and their parents. The analytical framework places the research data inside the analysis of socio-political changes and transformations that Croatian society and economy have undergone since accessing the European Union.

Youth, Croatia, online media, democratic potential, civic action

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