INTRODUCTION

Youth political engagement has been perceived as declining especially in developed countries (Sloam et al. 2019). However, this decline is often only associated with formal or traditional political engagement such as voting in elections or joining political parties. Beyond formal political participation, youth activism remains visible in various forms of non-formal political engagement such as signing petitions, joining demonstrations and strikes as well as those facilitated by social media. Social media provide solutions to improve youth political engagement by being a new medium of communication for political actors and institutions to disseminate information to wider audiences including young citizens and facilitating an alternative space for these to express their views and preferences beyond the formal forms of political engagement (Keating and Melis 2017).

Youths are digital natives who spend more of their time online compared to adults. Data from the digital global report in 2023 show that the average amount of time spent using the Internet among youths aged 16–24 years old is the highest—7 hours 28 minutes for females and 7 hours 9 minutes for males. On the other hand, the average amount of time spent on the Internet for those in older age categories is 7 hours and gets lower with their increasing age (Kemp 2023a). Therefore, it is not surprising that social media have become a strategic alternative space for the young to channel their social and political aspirations. Via social media, youths can obtain and share information on political issues, organize activities, coordinate offline activism faster, and reach a wider public. Social and political engagements facilitated by social media are often considered slacktivism—defined as “low-cost and low-risk digital practices” such as signing online petitions, “liking” a Facebook page, or retweeting a tweet on Twitter (Schumann and Klein 2015). While some are optimistic regarding the impacts of slacktivism on fostering a more sustainable political engagement (Smith, Krishna, and Al-Sinan 2015), others maintain a pessimistic view, considering it a superficial online activity that lacks commitment to effectuating social change (Christensen 2011). This perspective portrays slacktivism as a less meaningful activism driven by self-presentation, group identification and narcissistic motivations that may even hinder broader social-political activism efforts (Lim 2013; Harlow and Guo 2014).

In light of this debate, this study examines the extent to which youth online activism—often considered slacktivism—affects their offline political activism. It addresses questions such as the following: What are the determinants of youth political activism? What is the relationship between youth online and offline political activism? Under what conditions does online political activism lead to offline activism?