数字时代青年社会治理共同体意识的培育机制研究

A Study of the Mechanisms to Cultivate an Awareness of a Social Governance Community among Youth in the Digital Era

青年群体是数字时代享受技术红利的主力军,也是提升社会治理效能的潜在主体。但现有研究多关注社会治理中技术如何赋能具体事务的管理,较少关注从数字技术到社会治理的中间机制,以及青年与社会治理共同体的疏离。本文基于一项全国范围的青年群体问卷调查,研究发现:数字技术的使用有利于提高青年的社会治理共同体意识,特别是在以虚拟社区为代表的数字场域内,成员联结度越高越有利于培育青年的社会治理共同体意识,且这一效应通过提高青年的社会支持水平而实现;同时,推动以线上志愿服务为代表的社会治理参与方式面向更多青年,也将提升青年的社会治理共同体意识。本研究为新时代如何动员青年作为主体参与社会治理提供了理论路径与现实启示。

The digital age has changed the role of technology as a“tool”,enabling it not only to integrate various social resources but also to build a governance consensus among multi-party governance subjects in virtual communities.The youth group is the main force enjoying technological dividends in the digital age,and it is also a potential subject for improving the effectiveness of social governance.In the new era,young people in China are growing up in an age of mutual shaping with the Internet,and increasingly they are becoming the main information producers,service consumers,and technology promoters in cyberspace.Thus,youth's sense of a social governance community(SSGC)must be cultivated to enhance the effectiveness of social governance in the digital age.Based on a national survey of youth groups,this paper finds that the use of digital technology is conducive to enhancing the awareness of a social governance community among youth,especially within the digital field represented by virtual communities.The study constructs a mediation model of the full sample(N=533)and a moderated mediation model of the virtual community sample(N=217)based on a questionnaire survey distributed to nationwide youth to explore the mechanisms for cultivating a SSGC among youth.It is proposed that the use of digital technology(DT)is beneficial to cultivating the youth group's SSGC,especially in the digital field represented by virtual communities.In addition,it is expected that the youth group's perceived social support(SS)and online volunteer service experience(OVSE)are important mediating and boundary mechanisms to enhance their SSGC.A hierarchical analysis and a structural equation modeling technique are adopted for this study,while a bias-corrected percentile bootstrap analysis is used to assess the moderated-mediation relationships.First,the study takes DT as the logical starting point for a digital society and it shows that DT promotes the youth group's SSGC and the mediating role of SS in the full sample.Second,the study constructs a virtual community sample from the full sample of those who had joined an online volunteer service group and takes“the degree of connection among the members in the virtual community”(VC)instead of DT as an independent variable to test the effect of promotion of a VC on the youth group's SSGC and the mediating influence of SS.Finally,the study finds the positive moderating effect of OVSE on the relationship between the VC as well as on the mediating effect of SS.Existing research focuses more on how technology empowers the management of specific affairs in social governance,relatively neglecting the mediating mechanisms of DT on social governance as well as youth alienation from the community of social governance.The results of this study indicate that DT is helpful for the development of individual social relations.The duality of the technology depends more on the application mechanism and the users themselves.The mechanisms for cultivating the youth group's SSGC in the digital era mainly include two paths:social support from the external environment and online voluntary services among individuals.Thus further revealing the theoretical role of DT in social governance.Furthermore,this research provides theoretical guidance and practical insights into how to mobilize youth as active participants in social governance in the new era.