Venezuelan Youth and Political Confrontation. An Approach to Narratives in Real and Virtual Spaces

Abstract

Venezuelan youth have been part of the political dispute generated since 1999 with the rise of Hugo Chávez to power. The narratives about Venezuelan politics permeate all spaces: the street, the home, the school, the university, the workplace and especially the social networks that have become the favorites of young people to articulate their speeches and political actions. In this qualitative and interpretive study, the aim is to know the discourses on Venezuelan politics that circulate from the perspective of young people. Methodologically, through the use of Hine virtual ethnography and the cognitive processing method of discourse from Van Dijk’s perspective, we examine units of discourse around Venezuelan politics taken from in-depth unstructured interviews and discursive units in networks (Facebook and Twitter posts) of young university students from Caracas between 18 and 30 years old. The presented preliminary results of the research indicate that, although there is mutual questioning between the competing political trends in Venezuela, there are also common narratives about politics and its practices. Additionally, young people resignify politics and place it as a discipline that should be doomed to the general change of the country.