Joseph Kahne is a professor of education at Mills College, and here he discusses the impact of digital media on political participation.

Kahne states that civic and political participation is borne out of a need to solve common challenges: "Ultimately, we can't solve all the problems we face or achieve the potential that we see if we're always working as individuals. And that's why civic and political life met: because they give us a way to deal with some of those issues." (1:15)

As for why digital media is so important to increasing political and civic engagement, Joseph explains: "Digital media is key [...] because a lot of the forms of participation that young people will enact are going to be enacted via digital media. That's how they're gonna get engaged, that's the way they're gonna express their opinions, that's where they're gonna get their information, that's how they're gonna be recruited, that's how they're gonna recruit others." (2:00)

Joseph Kahne is the Chair & Co-Principal Investigator of the Youth and Participatory Politics Research Network. To learn more about this Research Network, go to

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