New Social Movements in Media: Marginal or Marginalized Narratives? The view of young people

Abstract

New social movements emerge in Portugal as relevant actors in democratic decision-making processes. As more democratic, young and urban, new social move-ments engage in a relevant change in the processes of negotiation (Santos 2008, 2001; Schemmeling 2009; Swyngedouw 2010; Touraine 2002, 1994), publicizing marginal claims and minority flags (Guerra 2006; Henriques 2007; Picolotto 2007; Alonso 2009). So, this article aims to discover: “How to define today’s narratives of the New Social Movements in Portuguese media, in the view of young people?”. The meth-odological resources used are documentary research and inquiry to a nonprobabilistic sample survey by voluntary system.The most significant results found about new activism are: a) journalistic pieces are evaluated, by youth, as partial, superficial and controversial; b) the respondents as-sociate some advantages to the new activism: flexibility, new technologies, and the per-ception of helping the world; c) and, finally, the respondents associate disadvantages to the new activism: extremism, violence, controversy.