ABSTRACT
In this chapter, a problem of educating young people in order to make them actively engaged in public life is analysed. Democracy, like hardly any other form of government, requires ongoing consolidation and cherishing of common values, as well as responsibility to protect these values being a condition sine qua non for the democratic community to exist. Educating young people so they feel responsible for themselves, for others, and for the community lies at the very core of any democratic system. Social media seems a vital meeting point for those who educate and those who are being educated. Indeed, social media being a place of social encounters is in itself a new frame for social encounters requiring a special kind of responsibility. However, the ethical imperative of responsibility, i.e. being responsible for others, to care for the common good, calls for acceptance of responsibility as a ‘respondere’, a dialogue with the person who chooses me and reaffirms me in my identity. In this chapter, social media is discussed as a ‘platform’ where the meeting of the teacher and the student, the parent and the child is manifested through shaping in a young person the ‘meaning’ of responsibility for oneself, for others, for the community, for the public sphere, and for democracy in particular.
