Discursive analysis of youth political activism in social networks: The defense of democracy in the Peruvian context of Covid-19

The present investigation focuses on the digital political activism on Instagram of young Peruvian influencers of generation Y and Z. They viralized messages in defense of democracy during the demonstrations against the vacancy of President Martín Vizcarra in November 2020 in the midst of a pandemic. of Covid-19, as well as during the time of the 2021 presidential elections. Through the methodology of content analysis of a sample of posts, we sought to categorize and interpret the political messages related to the concept of the defense of democracy. Young people defend democracy using a polarizing discourse if their ideology is clearly on the right or left, while centrist influencers use a more positive and conciliatory tone of communication. It should be noted that the concept of democracy is mixed with that of patriotism when referring to its defense. Young people show activism for democracy and see corruption as their greatest threat, but they do not always have clear proposals on how to strengthen it. During the stage of the marches for the vacancy in 2020, activism in defense of democracy reached its peak and then gradually decreased until the 2021 elections.