Make, Share, Care: Social Media and LGBTQ Youth Engagement

Social media is potentially a very useful tool for grassroots organisations that concern themselves with political action for social justice and/or the provision of community facing support services, such as LGBTQ charities and community groups. Social networking sites in particular offer the possibility of communicating with multiple constituencies and can be used to publicise services, campaign, engage potential sponsors, create peer networks, as well as communicate directly with existing and new service users.

When it comes to LGBTQ youth engagement, social media outreach work offers a means to effectively reach its target group. In light of recent research in the USA, that suggests a significant difference by sexual orientation among youth in relying on online sources for sexual health information (78 per cent of LGBTQ youth compared to 19 per cent of heterosexual youth), it can be argued that an online presence is an essential dimension for organisations working with LGBTQ youth in any capacity.

This collaborative project addresses the challenges and possibilities of social media to help generate and support outreach work with young LGBTQ people in the context of youth services. This involves among other things looking at how commercial, mainstream social media platforms are utilised in pragmatic and sometimes dissident ways to fit the needs of marginalised youth, highlighting in particular the praxis of making, sharing and caring online.