Teenage Participants of the 2008 Candlelight Vigil: Their Social Characteristics and Changes in Political Views

초록

The current research attempts to investigate the questions of who the participants in the candlelight vigil of 2008 were and how they have changed over time. In order to answer these questions, we used survey data collected in June 2008, which was used as a basis for follow-up research of the, same respondents in September 2008 and July 2009. In the first part of our analysis, we examine the general characteristics of the participant teens. We found that the participants were not very different from nonparticipant teens in terms of their social background, such as class identity and GPAs. In the latter part of the paper, we analyze how the teens evaluated the candlelight vigil after one year. We found that the participants tend to define themselves as the "candlelight generation" and share a strong feeling of "we-ness." It was also found that the respondents were strongly influenced by the experience of participating in the candle protest in terms of political consciousness.

키워드