YouTube shapes young people’s political education, but the site simplifies complex issues

Author: Emine Fidan Elcioglu | Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto

Excerpts from the introduction:

There is a widely held misconception that young people are politically disengaged. This is based on narrow measures like voter turnout. But this overlooks the fact that many young people are deeply curious, especially when politics is understood more broadly: as a way to make sense of society, power and everyday life.

My findings build on my earlier research, conducted with second-generation Chinese and South Asian Canadians, where I found that many of them turned to conservative ideas to access feelings of dignity and belonging. For them, embracing meritocracy wasn’t about denying racism — it was a way to prove they’d succeeded by Canada’s rules.

In this new study, I wanted to understand what shapes that gap — what makes some students more likely to see power as structural, and others more likely to see it as personal or cultural.

I found that young people now form political beliefs through two competing knowledge systems: a hollowed-out university, and YouTube’s attention economy. In the university classroom, students learn to connect experience to systems like racism or class inequality. On YouTube, other students encounter simplified stories or common-sense clichés.

The result is a generation pulled between critique and clarity, where YouTube offers answers that feel true.