“ADDA A”: There is Something Youth Can Do — a Critical Discourse Analysis on Maximizing Civic Engagement of KK Members in Local Governance

Authors

  • Kenedy Flores Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University image/svg+xml Author

Keywords:

Participatory governance, Katipunan ng Kabataan, political policy, public administration, youth governance, political socialization

Abstract

Youth participation in local governance is often celebrated in rhetoric but contested in reality. In the Philippines, the Katipunan ng Kabataan (KK) is legally constituted as a collective consultative body in every barangay. While its purpose is to represent youth voice in policy, planning, and development, its actual impact remains inconsistent and often symbolic. This study uses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine how KK members from both districts of La Union province navigate institutional structures, assert agency, and redefine their civic roles within barangay governance. Drawing from interviews, assembly records, and youth development plans involving 25 KK members across rural and urban barangays, this study surfaces a five-phase framework of civic transformation: Awareness, Discipline, Decision, Action, and Accountability—coined by participants as “ADDA A,” meaning “There is!” in Ilocano. The study contributes to Political Science by mapping the political socialization of youth in subnational governance, and to Public Administration by highlighting youth-led discursive strategies that shape policy spaces despite systemic adultism. ADDA A serves as both a grounded theory and a practical framework for institutionalizing genuine youth participation at the barangay level.

References

Avery, E. J., & Graham, M. W. (2013). Political public relations and the promotion of participatory, transparent government through social media. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 7(4), 274–291.

Bennett, W. L. (2012). The personalization of politics: Political identity, social media, and changing patterns of participation. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 644(1), 20–39.

Berriman, L., & Thomson, R. (2015). Spectacles of intimacy? Mapping the moral landscape of teenage social media. Journal of Youth Studies, 18(5), 583–597.

Cheshire, L., Everingham, J. A., & Lawrence, G. (2014). Governing the impacts of mining: Challenges for rural and regional local governments in Australia. Journal of Rural Studies, 36, 330–339.

Cook, N. J., Wright, G. D., & Andersson, K. P. (2017). Local politics of forest governance: Why NGO support can reduce local government responsiveness. World Development, 92, 203–214.

D’Ambrosi, L. (2017). The global active citizenship network in Italian local contexts: Using social media to promote sustainable behaviours. Javnost - The Public, 24(1), 34–48.

Dabbagh, N., & Kitsantas, A. (2013). The role of social media in self-regulated learning. International Journal of Web Based Communities, 9(2), 256–273.

Dobos, A., & Jenei, Á. (2015). Citizen engagement as a learning experience. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 93, 1085–1089.

Ellison, N., & Hardey, M. (2015). Social media and local government: Citizenship, consumption and democracy. Local Government Studies, 40(1), 21–40.

Gálvez Rodríguez, M. M., Haro de Rosario, A., & Caba, C. (2018). Improving citizens’ online engagement via community managers: An explanatory study. Information, Communication & Society, 21(10), 1402–1418.

Gao, X., & Lee, J. (2017). E-government services and social media adoption: Experience of small local governments in Nebraska State. Government Information Quarterly, 34(4), 627–634.

Han, R., & Jia, L. (2018). Ruling by the internet: Local governance in the digital age. Journal of Chinese Governance, 67–85.

Henman, P. (2013). Governmentalities of Gov 2.0. Information, Communication & Society, 16(9), 1397–1418.

Hepburn, P. (2015). Local governance and the online networked public sphere: A case study. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 9(4), 370–387.

Höffken, S., & Streich, B. (2015). Mobile participation: Citizen engagement in urban planning via smartphones. In Citizen e-participation in urban governance (pp. 199–225).

Kavanaugh, A., et al. (2012). Social media use by government: From the routine to the critical. Government Information Quarterly, 29, 480–491.

Kim, J. H., Keane, T. D., & Bernard, E. A. (2015). Fragmented local governance and water resource management outcomes. Journal of Environmental Management, 150, 378–386.

King, C. S. (2000). Citizen engagement and sustainability: Connected communities: Local governments as a partner in citizen engagement and community building (pp. 53–56).

Kirkpatrick, D. (2011). Technology social power and the coming corporate revolution: Why employees and customers will be calling the shots. Forbes, 5.

Kurz, S., Zerfaß, A., & Linke, A. (2011). Studie social media governance 2011. Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration, 209(4457), 1–65.

Lachlan, K. A., et al. (2016). Social media and crisis management: CERC, search strategies, and Twitter content. Computers in Human Behavior, 54, 647–652.

Mandarano, L., & Meenar, M. (2016). Building social capital in the digital age of civic engagement. Journal of Planning Literature, 25(2), 123–135.

Mazali, T. (2017). Social media as a new public sphere linked. Leonardo, 44(3), 290–291.

Mergel, I. (2013). Social media adoption and resulting tactics in the U.S. federal government. Government Information Quarterly, 30(2), 123–130.

Mergel, I., & Greeves, B. (2012). Social media in the public sector field guide: Designing and implementing strategies and policies. Jossey-Bass.

O’Keeffe, G. S., & Clarke-Pearson, K. (2011). The impact of social media on children, adolescents, and families. Pediatrics, 127(4), 800–804.

Omar, K., Stockdale, R., & Scheepers, H. (2015). Social media use in local government: An Australian perspective. International Journal of Public Administration, 37(10), 666–675.

Panagiotopoulos, P., Bigdeli, A. Z., & Sams, S. (2014). Citizen-government collaboration on social media: The case of Twitter in the 2011 riots in England. Government Information Quarterly, 31(3), 349–357.

Sharif, M. H. M. (2015). Public sector adoption of social media. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 55(4), 53–61.

Stoker, G. (2015). Engaging citizens: Can Westminster coexist with meaningful citizen-centric engagement? Australian National University Press.

Sweetser, K. D. (2014). Government gone wild: Ethics, reputation, and social media. Routledge.

Teng-Calleja, M., et al. (2017). Transformation in Philippine local government. Local Government Studies, 43(1), 64–88.

Verma, R. K., Kumar, S., & Ilavarasan, P. V. (2017). Government portals, social media platforms and citizen engagement in India: Some insights. Procedia Computer Science, 122, 842–849. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2017.11.445

Warren, A. M., Sulaiman, A., & Jaafar, N. I. (2014). Social media effects on fostering online civic engagement and building citizen trust and trust in institutions. Government Information Quarterly, 31(2), 291–301.

Zavattaro, S. M., & Sementelli, A. J. (2015). A critical examination of social media adoption in government: Introducing omnipresence. Government Information Quarterly, 31(2), 257–264.

Downloads

Published

2025-10-30

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2025): Journal of Social Transformation, Governance and Cultural Studies

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Journal of Social Transformation, Governance, and Cultural Studies

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Under this license, you may not use the material for any commercial purposes.

The images or other third-party material in this article are included under the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material.