Youth and Digital Democracy 

Posted on by


Movement For Improvement: How Brave Youth Are in Democracy 

Essay by Angga Brian Fernandi

Digital Democracy

Nowadays, the use of information and communication technologies and strategies in political and governance processes are massive. As we see that internet has become the primary need in 21st century. In the aspect of digital democracy, internet is used to access the information for free through social media, online news, online chat rooms, and many more to uphold and promote human rights. 

Digital democracy enables public to express their aspirations towards the issue happening in the world. Moreover, it makes them able to get and post information about their views to politicians in form of critics, compliments, and advice. It results in public policy making increasing equal participation of entire levels of society.


Youth and Democracy

 Democracy in the world has become reliant to the internet as it is the first place to grab information for most people, especially the youth. According to the data of We Are Social and Hootsuite, the total internet users around the world in 2019 is up to 4.3 billions people. In addition, ICT Facts and Figures revealed in 2017 that youth are the forefront of internet users reaching up to 80%. Moreover, youth are nearly two times more networked than the global population as a whole. These data show that youth have power and more often speak on social media. 


Youth Involvement in Digital Democracy

The youth are now taking the lead and breaking the barriers in political participation. The recent phenomena has just happened in Indonesia and the whole world. Here are the real examples. 

 In Indonesia, we have the mass protest towards the revision of KPK Law and Criminal Code Bill. The revision shows that the government weakens the KPK’s duty and creates some weird laws violating human rights and oppressing women. Therefore, the youth in Indonesia vows to fight this unfairness since the government just pass and propose these laws without people consent. The protests were done by university students and it happened in many cities in Indonesia. As a result, Jokowi asks the legislative authority to review the bill again and postpone the legitimation.

 In the world, we have Global Climate Action as the fight against Climate Change. Tons of people and youth did protest to political leaders and government to cope with environmental problems. This action is called Climate Strike and it is initiated by Sweden girl named Greta Thunberg through her ‘School Strike For Climate Change’ campaign. This action is finally resulted in Climate Action Summit closing release revealing the solution to decrease the cause of climate change. 


How to achieve healthy Democracy 

By looking at the issues aforesaid, these are things we need to do to achieve healthy digital democracy. 

  1. Every youth spread the information via attached picture, online petition-signing, or hashtag, #ClimateStrike and #SaveDemokrasi for instance, to form networks and platform in creative ways. 
  2. The youth express their aspirations and get feedback through social media or application build by government. The example is LAPOR (Layanan Aspirasi dan Pengaduan Online Rakyat) existing in Indonesia. 
  3. It is followed by the real action through the structural demonstration and public dialogue with the stakeholders. However, they should pay attention to manner to make such action conducive. All of these are done to get fairness and prosperity for all. 

The connection between government and youth is important in creating good democratic atmosphere. In one hand, the government should respect their voices and thoughts and make sure news that is safe to use. On the other hand, the youth have to use the internet wisely as well as being critical in thinking to avoid hoax and cybernews. During this circumstance, the youth need to evaluate news from many perspective to prevent misunderstanding. Moreover, tolerance and respect are the keys to achieve inclusivity and prosperity since we are living in pluralism. If they acquire these values, they can take more actions to represent and save their communities to be more prosperous and inclusive.