The symposium presents results of qualitative research on juvenile politicization on digital platforms in times of uncertainty. Articulations on politics by adolescents and young adults are examined empirically concerning implicit notions of relations of care (Magatti et al. 2019) and temporality (Aswani et al. 2018). We examine concepts of care relations and temporality and analyse transformation processes, especially against the backdrop of the current age of uncertainty, in which modernized societies question fundamental assumptions of development, transmission and continuity (Zilles et al. 2022; Adloff & Neckel 2019). Digital conditions (Stalder 2016) arguably create low-threshold opportunities for social and political participation (Grunert 2022) and transform the access to educational spaces (Jörissen 2020; Stahl & Literat 2022). In this regard, data suggests that adolescents and young adults increasingly use digital media for protest (Literat & Kligler-Vilenchik 2019; McLean & Fuller 2016). Nonetheless, social media also has to be considered in terms of its algorithmic curation based on economic interests, which presents the digital possibilities of connectivity, favours emotional and affective content (Papacharissi 2015) and may lead to discriminatory injustice in visibility - which has direct consequences for political activism online (Etter & Albu 2020; Neumayer & Rossi 2018)

Therefore, the symposium examines political subjectification in the context of digital image platforms, taking into account both the algorithmic structuring as well as the applicable disadvantageous power asymmetries - especially concerning generational order (Liou & Literat 2020; Theodorou et al. 2023). In doing so, we focus on articulations on protest made by adolescents and young adults and analyse implicit political notions of future, present and past. Subsequently, we question the empirical data regarding its inherent utopian potential and concepts of care and temporality. The symposium aims to contribute to the understanding of the modes of political subjectification of adolescents and young adults with special regards to relations of social inequality and underlying concepts of (in)justice as they take shape under the conditions of late modernity and on social media platforms.

Lastly, we examine how the socio-cultural arena, as it is generated via video and image platforms such as TikTok or Instagram, (co-)contours the (in)visibility and significance of certain articulations of care relations and logics of time in the context of the age of uncertainty. By illustrating how visibility and invisibility are shaped by these socio-cultural arenas, the symposium explores how they sculpt and structure discourse on care and temporality. Conclusively the symposium raises questions on the interconnectedness of digital and analogue spheres and their consideration in (educational) research concerning transformative and dynamic societies.

In four lectures, the following questions will be addressed on the basis of four different qualitative research projects in which forms of youth protest in Germany, Spain, Brazil and Switzerland were examined.

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