In recent decades, the levels of political engagement of EU youth have declined (Kitanova, 2020). Norris (2003) suggests that this apathy is caused by the youth’s significant disillusionment with the political system. While there are various means by which people can express their political and social views to advocate for desired change (Norris, 2003), the choice of these means depends on their perceived success rate concerning the desired outcome (Šerek et al., 2012). In the vast majority of European countries, young people can’t vote until the age of 18, and while their political representation is nominal, they need to rely on older generations to represent their interests, which can be overlooked (Vochocová & Rosenfeldová, 2023).

However, studies indicate that young individuals may embrace unconventional or novel means of involvement in the socio-political sphere (Ross, 2021; Šerek et al., 2012). This study explores the transformative potential and challenges of youth activism, specifically online activism, as a way of exhibiting democratic mindsets and attitudes as envisioned in Dewey’s conceptualization of democracy (Hytten, 2016).

Activism can be understood as a wide array of actions instigated to promote political causes, environmental protection, human rights, or anti-war efforts (Klar & Kasser, 2009). Furthermore, students representing Generation Z are the first to grow up in an era of universal internet access and widespread use of social networking sites, such as Instagram, X, and Facebook. These platforms have become their space of everyday activity and where they learn about and engage with various socio-political issues (Bakker & Vreese, C. H. 2011; Vromen et al., 2015; Jakubowski, 2021). Therefore, social media, where visual images possess inherent political implications and play a central role in negotiating, consolidating, and naturalizing major cultural narratives and social norms (Melek & Müyesseroğlu, 2023), have the potential to counteract the decreasing engagement of youth in political activities (Hobbs, 2016).

While offline civic engagement can place limitations on young people due to resource constraints or parental and school restrictions, the online environment emerges as a space where they can participate actively and independently through a myriad of activities, including expressing opinions, engaging in discussions, sharing information, and mobilizing for collective action (Machackova & Šerek, 2017). This could be seen with the worldwide rise of youth environmental engagement, the Black Lives Matter movement, or the recent Free Palestine protests. In Poland, social media was used for communication, networking, and mobilization of Polish women against the proposed total ban on abortion in 2016 (Korolczuk, 2016). This form of social action has also been adopted by young Polish climate activists from the ‘Wschod’ organization and, most recently, campaigns organized by young Polish activists to encourage youth participation in the 2023 parliamentary elections.

However, researchers express concerns about the external efficiency of online civic participation, the presence of misleading or false information, and the actions of groups disseminating extremist attitudes (Machackova & Šerek, 2017). Moreover, Jakubowski (2021) observes that online personalities often project their preconceived views onto their audiences, a tendency that may primarily apply to young individuals seeking opinions rather than information. Therefore, it is important to better understand the potential and the challenges of this new form of democratic participation from the perspective of its young users.

This proposal is rooted in the ongoing multimethod research project STUDACT, with a particular focus on the Polish case study. It aims to understand how Polish youth utilize social media to gain knowledge, comprehend, and engage with local, national, and global issues. How do they understand activism and online activism? How do they perceive their individual roles and their potential influence on local and global matters through active and reactive online activism?

The participants included Polish secondary school students aged 14-18 and established Polish young activists aged 18-25. The school students participated in small discussion groups, based on the methodology originally guided by Bohnsack (2000), which understands a discussion group as an open interview that allows the participants to engage with the topic using their own set of meanings including language, symbolic system and framework. Overall, 30 discussion groups of 5-7 participants were conducted in small and large Polish urban areas. The participants came from different educational organisations including the state’s secondary schools of general education, but also more distinct secondary schools such as IB state schools, Catholic schools, Technical Schools, and Art schools. The students responded to open-ended questions related to their awareness, understanding and experience with activism, global issues, human rights, climate change, their education about these issues inside and outside of school, including their online engagement. Furthermore, 10 young activists aged 18-25 participated in Photovoice research. Understanding photovoice as the act of taking photos or documentation, followed by telling stories related to these photos (Wang, 2006), the participants took part individually in three meetings over 3 months. Based on the photographs they captured, they discussed their activism and social media presence in relation to their activism. All data was transcribed and analysed through thematic analysis methodology following Braun and Clarke's (2021) procedures for generating both, ‘data-driven’ and ‘theory-driven’ codes and themes from qualitative data. One of the ‘data-driven’ themes that became prevalent in and throughout many discussion groups, is the presented here issue of online activism and its implications.

Students who participated in discussion groups showed awareness and engagement with issues such as human rights, climate change, and, to some extent, national and global politics. The vast majority considered social media as their primary source of information on current global and local initiatives and issues. They viewed social media, such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok as platforms where they could express their opinions through actions like commenting, sharing, or liking posts from activists they find significant. Many believe that such actions are a form of activism, as they gain and spread awareness about issues that are important to them. They also considered social media activism as a means to exchange ideas about various local and global initiatives and to provide mutual encouragement for various offline actions. While students in the discussion groups were able to name worldwide recognized youth activists such as Greta Thunberg, they were mostly unsure about the names of Polish young activists. However, they were aware of and engaged with the issues raised and disseminated by many Polish activists on social media platforms. These issues encompassed climate change, women’s rights, and human rights. This may suggest that contemporary youth activism serves as a form of informal education, deepening individuals' understanding of democracy. However, while some participating students could critically assess activists' views and actions, others were prone to accepting online information unquestioningly, rendering them susceptible to one-sided activist agendas and occasional misinformation. The interviews with the Polish activists gave insights into how they view their social media presence and its potential impact, understanding that their individual actions may not have the desired effect in terms of outreach; however, with a group effort, their posts collectively can spread the message they want to convey to larger audiences.

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