Youth power in precarious times : reimagining civic participation /

In this book Brough (California State Univ., Northridge) explores how digital media have empowered youth and enabled enhanced civic participation in Medellín, Colombia, during the earlier 2000s. The theoretical framework is grounded in analysis of collective cultural participation and polycultural civics. Brough found that digital technologies and other media tools such as graffiti and rap were used to enhance participation in the public sphere. The book contrasts two ways of engaging the community--grassroots and top-down. Ciudad Comuna is described as a grass-roots citizen media project, while Medellín Digital represents a government project. The youth collectives studied--including 14-year-olds and up--created and offered alternative visions of youth citizenship, thereby confronting and addressing disillusionment with the elites in power. Participation was not homogenous: among the youth included in the study, there were historical, cultural, and economic differences. One participating group was composed of young Afro-Colombians, bringing their civic participation experience as marginalized and peripheral youth. The analysis focuses on the strategy of participatory budgeting, which invites citizens to provide input to the allocation of local resources. In sum, Brough's analysis reviews the role of digital communications in securing youth engagement in public life, contributing to participatory public culture and multicultural communities in the face of the challenges presented by structural inequality and violence. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Roman A. Santillan, Medgar Evers College, CUNY