Gen-Z Uprisings in The Global South: Challenging Traditional Political Mobilization and Reshaping Civic Culture

International Journal of Social Science and Human Research ISSN (print): 2644-0679, ISSN (online): 2644-0695 Volume 08 Issue 10 October 2025 DOI: 10.47191/ijsshr/v8-i10-52, Impact factor8.007 Page No: 7978-7985 IJSSHR, Volume 08 Issue 10 October 2025 www.ijsshr.in Page 7978 Gen-Z Uprisings in The Global South: Challenging Traditional Political Mobilization and Reshaping Civic Culture Md Rubel Mia1, Naim Bin Hasan2 1PhD Student and Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA), Comparative Studies Program, Florida Atlantic University, USA ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-3875-8522 2Graduate Student and Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA), Department of Sociology, Florida Atlantic University, USA ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-4930-7241 ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the impact of Generation-Z-led uprisings in the Global South that not only disrupt the classic paradigm of political mobilization, but also alters the nature of civic culture in its entirety. It aims to address the following question: How do Gen-Z uprisings across Global South contexts challenge traditional political mobilization and reshape civic culture? The study is based on a media-ethnographic methodology and that investigates 35 news stories of the national and international media using a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and frame analysis approach. The findings show that such movements are defined by an advanced hybrid algorithm of activism, which combines seamlessly online and offline strategies to keep the movement going and avoid state repression. Some of the defining features are the strategic mobilization via the use of digital platforms such as TikTok and governance via the use of Discord, transnational cultural symbols like the One Piece flag to create a shared identity, and the creation of digital resilience against state authority. Media analysis reveals that these movements are framed two-sidedly as both mobilizing forces of democratic revival and dangerous, leaderless mobs. This paper argues that Gen-Z is leading a new era of networked activism that combines both international digital culture and local social-economic discontents. This way, they are establishing new, performative rites of political belonging, functioning more or less out of the official political institutions and pointing to a potentially irreversible change in the ways of thinking and acting civic engagement in the 21st century. KEYWORDS: Social Movements, Gen-Z, Global South, Digital Activism, Political Mobilization, Civic Culture, Media Framing 1. INTRODUCTION In Kathmandu, the bitter odor of smoke remains where the grand palace of Singha Durbar, the extravagant home of Nepal parliament, is still smoldering and vacuous (The Guardian, 2025). There is a graffiti message on its walls that says, “You picked the wrong fight”, but it is signed by just “Gen Z” (Khandekar & Kandel, 2025). This scene, the outcome of a “whirlwind 48 hours” (Shivji, 2025), is mirrored in Dhaka, where teenage boy scouts seized control of traffic anarchy after the police disappeared and the prime minister left the country, this scene is reflected (Hadid & Hussain, 2024). They are not one-time events but powerful icons of a new generation of political struggle rocking the Global South. A generation of hyperconnected, economically disenfranchised, and politically alienated people is rising to the streets and the web as far as Morocco to Madagascar and Indonesia, bringing tectonic changes to the established political terrain (Aggarwal, Bhojwani, & Ganglani, 2025; Bartlett and Akinwotu, 2025). The analytical puzzle the paper addresses is not that Gen-Z is protesting, but how their mobilization approaches represent a sharp turn away from the historic, hierarchy and institution-bound social movements of the past. Even though the youth have never ceased being the vanguard of political change, the current spasms are characterized by a decentralized, digitally native, and symbolically cultural nature. The generational break they experience can be called a generational rupture, the lack of connection between a generation born in the age of digital omnipresence and swift worldwide connection, and the politically old school, which is frequently kleptocratic, powers them (Kharel, 2025). In Nepal, which had not seen most of its Gen-Z activists, one of them bemoaned that she had been seeing the same faces in authority throughout her life (Shivji, 2025). The disruption is not just ideological; it is based on the economic precarity, which is deeply rooted. Youth unemployment is severe in South Asia, where almost half of citizens are under 25 years old, where corruption is the norm, and where there is limited access to social mobility (Yashraj, 2025; Greene, 2025). In Morocco, observers attribute the cause of a sharp divide between a digitally linked and politically aware generation and the existing ruling elites (Zaaimi, 2025). Such a feeling of a generation being stolen by a rogue elite is the gasoline on the fires of these movements (Yashraj, 2025). Gen-Z Uprisings in The Global South: Challenging Traditional Political Mobilization and Reshaping Civic Culture IJSSHR, Volume 08 Issue 10 October 2025 www.ijsshr.in Page 7979 In this paper, the Global South has been taken as a critical framework of analysis but not in terms of its geographic position but rather in terms of shared experiences with post-colonial governance, excessive demographic youth bulges, and desperate socioeconomic tensions. These common threads link the case studies - Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia, Morocco and Madagascar. We are witnessing appalling young unemployment rates in these countries - more than one-fifth in Nepal, more than a third of those under 25 in Morocco, and about 14% in Indonesia - and high levels of poverty, with three-quarters of the urban poor in Madagascar (Shivji, 2025; Greene, 2025; Aggarwal, Bhojwani, & Ganglani, 2025). This similar situation of economic disenfranchisement is the fertile soil that digital tools and global cultural symbols can be used to organize mass dissent. The paper will thus pose the following question: How do Gen-Z uprisings across Global South contexts challenge traditional political mobilization and reshape civic culture? In response to this, this paper looks at the exact digital and cultural strategies these movements used, including the governance via the use of social media and the identity through the use of transnational symbols. It also examines how these practices give rise to new and decentralized ways of political belonging that is sharply differentiated to the hierarchical and institution-based forms of the previous decades past. The paper develops the thesis by stating the following: Gen-Z revolts in the Global South are transforming civic culture by introducing new hybrid forms of networked activism that blend transnational digital culture with localized grievance, producing new, performative practices of political belonging that exist beyond institutional frameworks. This model is not simply one that spills over into the streets as an online phenomenon; it is an extremely well-intertwined ecosystem where digital platforms are utilized to govern and mobilize with sophisticated techniques and offline activities serve to bring the visibility and confrontational power needed to challenge the state authority. Gen-Z is constructing a new civic identity that is fluid, performative and networked, instead of fix, ideological and hierarchical through this hybridity. This paper is divided into five sections. To begin with, the literature review positions this study in the scholarship domain of networked social movements, generational theory, symbolic repertoire of protest, and media framing. Second, the methodology section provides the media-ethnographic approach and the dual framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Frame Analysis that the 35 news reports were analyzed with. Third, the findings section includes an in-depth explanation of the digital construction of the movements, how they employ cultural and symbolic moves, how they manage state repression, how they find their origins in the socio-economic sphere and how they are depicted in the media. Fourth, the discussion addresses the theoretical implications of the findings presented, which states that networked activism should be understood in a refined way. Lastly, the conclusion draws up a conclusion of the contributions made in the paper, the limitations, and recommendations on future research. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Networked Social Movements in the Digital Age The research of current social movements cannot be imagined without the contribution of Manuel Castells (2012), who theorized about emerging (networked) social movements made possible by the internet. Castells believed the digital communication technologies provided “spaces of autonomy” in which citizens could circumvent media and corporate gatekeepers control to selforganize and self-communicate. This paradigm forms the basis of comprehending such movements as the Arab spring and Occupy Wall Street which used such platforms as Facebook and Twitter to organize the masses. But the uprisings of the Gen-Z in the Global South imply a twist to this model. They have been developing a more advanced hybrid model, which merges the spheres of online and offline using strategic approaches, although based on the ideas of leaderless, networked organization. It is not just an instance of mobilization through the internet resulting in an offline demonstration; the virtual world has turned into a place of governance, shaping of identities and planning of actions, whereas the real world is the one to use when powerful and symbolic protests are to take place. The result of this hybridity seems to be a direct strategic reaction to increased state repression, including internet blockings and monitoring efforts (Sombatpoonsiri, 2025) that makes activists much more agile and adaptable than the movements Castells initially described. This is in contrast to the previous resource mobilization assumptions (McCarthy & Zald, 1977) which focused on formal organizations and material resources since these Gen-Z movements show that legitimacy and ability to organize can be created almost wholly through digital networks and symbolic capital. 2.2 Theorizing the Generational Lens: Digital Native and Economic Precarity The theory of generations by Mannheim (1952) is an important analysis tool to explain the reasons behind these movements. Mannheim believed that historical experiences as an adolescent and at the beginning of adulthood defined historical experiences that influenced the collective consciousness of a generation forming their own specific units, a generation. This formative backdrop is marked by two overlapping realities: the ubiquity of the digital and a depth of economic precarity, and it is the case of Gen-Z. They are also digital natives, as opposed to millennials, who were digital pioneers; Gen-Z social, cultural, and even political affairs are fully integrated into the digital world. The result of this immersion has provided them with a specific set of mobilization and communication tools (McGuinness, 2025). At the same time, this generation has grown up in a time of neoliberal austerity, high unemployment rates among youth, and systematic corruption which has closed the old ways of achieving stability. Online freelancing participation in the global digital economy presents a channel to income to young people in such countries as Bangladesh Gen-Z Uprisings in The Global South: Challenging Traditional Political Mobilization and Reshaping Civic Culture IJSSHR, Volume 08 Issue 10 October 2025 www.ijsshr.in Page 7980 but also introduces them to the risks of un-regulated, precarious work and only strengthens their disillusionment with the current economic systems (Hasan, 2025). This digital empowerment and economic disenfranchisement come to combine, resulting in the situations discussed in this paper as fundamental rupture in political culture where the values, practices, and aspirations of Gen-Z activists become so alien to the ruling gerontocracy that they are subject to confrontation (Yashraj, 2025). 2.3 The Cultural and Symbolic Repertoire of Protest Although the socio-economic resentment is the main factor behind these uprisings, their nature and unity are created by the means of common cultural and symbolic repertoire. This shifts the discussion outside of materialist analyses of protest into the realm of performative and ritualistic aspects of protest and follows in line with Melucci (1989) on the topic of “new social movements.” According to Melucci, modern movements are about both building collective identities and breaking cultural codes in such a way that they are not only about realizing particular political ambitions. The Gen-Z uprisings are the best examples that utilize a wide range of symbols, memes, and linguistic strategies to establish solidarity and express their discontent. The symbol of antiauthoritarianism is the adoption of a flag inspired by a Japanese anime One Piece across Nepal, Indonesia, and Madagascar that is an effective demonstration of how transnational pop culture can be localized to become a powerful tool of resistance (IEP Editorial Staff, 2025). Likewise, the tactical deployment of hashtags whose meanings oppose corporate culture, such as #NepoBaby in Nepal, or the re-enactment of political slurs such as “Razakar” in Bangladesh, serve as Scott (1985) style weapons of the weak, reaccessorized to fit the digital era. Such symbolic acts do not belong to the margins of the movements: they are at the very core of the process, as a leaderless, ideologically heterogeneous group of young people creates a common identity and a sense of its moral superiority over the state. 2.4 Media Framing and Politics of Representation The social movements are greatly mediated by the way in which the news media and media cover them that determines their perception and ultimate success. This paper relies on the frame analysis, based on the writing of Goffman (1974) and Entman (1993), to make sense of how the media narratives shape and make sense of the Gen-Z uprisings. A frame is an attempt to pick out portions of an apparent reality and highlight it in a communicating text to advance a specific problem definition, causal meaning, morality critique and/or treatment prescription. In addition to this, analysis of the specific linguistic decisions, metaphors, and labels that make up these frames is done using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) by Fairclough (1995). The comparison of the news stories shows the focus of framing tension in the discussion of these movements. On the one hand, they are being framed as a transformative innovator, which is digitally-savvy, egalitarian agents of democratic renewal and pioneers of new civic participation (Kharel, 2025). Conversely, they are commonly presented as a precarious and chaotic crowd that lacks a leader, naive, and vulnerable to manipulation by outside forces or social media algorithms (Sombatpoonsiri, 2025; Wong, 2025). This dualism in the media coverage indicates the larger societal fears about these new types of protest and extensive consequences that such forms of protest have on its legitimacy and its capacity to reach long-term objectives. METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research Design: A Media-Ethnographic Approach. The present research paper is grounded in a qualitative and media-ethnographic methodology to explore the Gen-Z uprisings in the Global South. According to this method, news reports are not only the objective description of occurrences but the culturally rich artifacts which reflect and construct social and political realities. Through systematic critique of the media content, we are able to understand who the important participants, tactics, symbols, and dominant narratives around these movements are, which is actually an “ethnography at a distance.” The sample has 35 news stories released during the period August 2018 and October 2025 in five countries: Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia, Morocco, and Madagascar about the youth-led protests. 3.2 Data Collection and Sampling The dataset was constructed through a purposive sampling approach. The selection criteria were created so as to have a multi-faceted and inclusive picture of the phenomenon. Firstly, the reports needed to pay more attention to youth-led (explicitly stated as Gen-Z or age group) protests in the chosen nations. Second, there is a combination of both the national (e.g., The Kathmandu Post, The Daily Star) and the large international publications (e.g., Reuters, AP, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, NPR). This was meant to bring into the fold both the local views as well as the manner in which these movements are being packaged to an international audience. Third, the selection of the timeframe was to cover not only the high-profile recent uprisings of 2024-2025, but also the predecessors, including the 2018 road safety protests in Bangladesh, to obtain the historical context. The 35 news reports corpus that has been obtained at the end offers a solid source of data to be analyzed in its qualitative nature. 3.3 Analytical Framework: Critical Discourse and Frame Analysis The data analysis was performed with the help of a two-level analytical system. First, the dominant narrative frames in the context of which the protests were perceived and represented were determined with the help of Frame Analysis (Goffman, 1974; Entman, 1993). This entailed an organized coding so as to determine recurring themes, metaphors and causal attributions of what the media Gen-Z Uprisings in The Global South: Challenging Traditional Political Mobilization and Reshaping Civic Culture IJSSHR, Volume 08 Issue 10 October 2025 www.ijsshr.in Page 7981 reported. In this process there arose two main master frames: the Digital-Savvy Innovators frame, where the protesters are the actors of the positive change and the Leaderless and Chaotic Mob frame where the protesters are described as the destabilizing and precarious force. Second, it utilized Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 1995) to provide a more detailed analysis of the linguistic and rhetoric options of these frames. This entailed paying particular attention to the particular terms used to characterize protestors (e.g. a revolution versus a minor), agency attribution, direct quoting and the general structure of the reports. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is useful in revealing the ideologies and power relations underlying the media discourse, how the language is being used to either legitimize or delegitimize the movements and their members. 3.4 Positionality Statement Being a researcher in the realm of Western academia, we also realize the power dynamics inherent in the study of social movements in the Global South. It is a danger of enforcing the external theoretical framework or misunderstanding the local circumstances. To reduce this bias, this study consciously attempts to place the voices and opinions as presented by the data itself centrally. The content analysis will put more emphasis on direct quotes in the news stories of activists, local journalists, and regional experts that the news is reporting. It is not aimed at representing the movements, but into examining how their actions, tactics, and motivations are being mediated and produced in a world-accessible media. This method of media-ethnography, although indirect, is therefore based on the existing textual evidence that come out of the areas of study. 4. FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS 4.1 The Digital Architecture of Dissent The Gen-Z movements are characterized by the advanced and strategic utilization of a diverse system of digital spaces, which are the architecture of their movements. This is way beyond merely utilizing social media in organizing demonstrations. In Nepal, the activists exhibited a great percentage of digital literacy by creating 50 social media clips through AI platforms ChatGPT, Grok, DeepSeek and Veed and spreading them mostly on TikTok, the platform that had not been banned by the government (Wong, 2025). This material became viral, one of the clips has received 135,000 views within a day, which is further promoted by online influencers. The platform used was a strategic move, as TikTok has an algorithm and an audience that could be used to disseminate their message. More notably, the chat platform that focused on gaming, Discord, became a key center of governance in politics. Following the overthrow of the Nepali government, the discussion changed to a Discord channel named Youth against corruption where more than 10,000 participants discussed the topics and ultimately voted online to elect the new interim leader of the country (Kharel, 2025; Shivji, 2025). This was termed as a revolutionary response to the custom of having politicians appointing leaders in secret (Kharel, 2025). Members lauded the exercise as being more democratic than a physical assembly that not every person could have attended, which was a radical experiment in direct digital democracy (Kharel, 2025). This is a strong development out of previous networked movements where digital tools were utilized in mobilization instead of making complicated decisions and ruling. 4.2 Performing Resistance: Symbols, Language, and Identity The movements created a powerful communal unity by creating a unified set of cultural signs and linguistic strategies. One of the brightest examples is the adoption of a flag of a Japanese anime One Piece, which is a skull in a straw hat, transnationally. The characters question the authorities of the world in the anime, and protesters of Indonesia, Nepal, and Madagascar adopted this symbol as a statement of solidarity and a protest against the perceived injustice (IEP Editorial Staff, 2025). One of the most recognizable displays of resistance was hanging the flag outside the Singha Durbar palace in Nepal (Greene, 2025). This example of utilizing a global pop culture artifact explains how Gen-Z can establish a feeling of solidarity that is independent of national borders (Wong, 2025). Language strategies were also very important. The hashtags, NepoBaby and NepoKids were the viral cry of protest against the ruling elite in Nepal, which was applied to reveal the lavish lifestyles of their children (The Guardian, 2025). The campaigns played against the pictures of elites with flaunts of luxury cars, fancy clothes, and exotic holidays and the reality of the common citizen whose annual earnings are under 1,500 dollars (Shivji, 2025; Khandekar and Kandel, 2025). In Bangladesh demonstrators played a brilliant semiotic jujitsu. The students wore the word as a badge of honor when the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina referred to them contemptuously as the “grandchildren of Razakars” a highly offensive name to be called those who assisted in the 1971 war (Ghosal, 2024). They walked chanting, “Who are you? Who am I? Razakar Razakar,” practically defying the insult and making it their own insignia of moral superiority over a dictatorship (Ghosal, 2024). 4.3 Navigating the State: A Hybrid Model of Resilience The Gen-Z activists have entered into an unending cat-and-mouse game against state authorities, creating a strong hybrid model of online-offline to resist repression. Rough suppressive methods were often used by governments. The Nepalese government issued a draconian ban on 26 social media sites, including Facebook and YouTube, and the government of Bangladesh shut mobile internet connectivity on multiple occasions with the Digital Security Act used to arrest protesters (The Guardian, 2025; Sombatpoonsi, 2025; Gen-Z Uprisings in The Global South: Challenging Traditional Political Mobilization and Reshaping Civic Culture IJSSHR, Volume 08 Issue 10 October 2025 www.ijsshr.in Page 7982 Agence France-Presse, 2018). Violence by the state was also typical, as the police used rubber bullets and tear gas in Bangladesh and shot protestors in the street in Morocco and killed two (Al Jazeera, 2018; Greene, 2025). The model of hybrid movements was very effective to fight these measures. The Nepalese social media ban as a means of suppressing dissent backfired and served as a catalyst because it effectively cut off the civic space of a generation making more young people take to the streets (The Guardian, 2025). The activists skillfully avoided censorship through VPN and concentration on the platforms that were not prohibited, such as TikTok (Wong, 2025). In Bangladesh, student leaders effortlessly shifted to the old way of mobilizing through telephone calls and by spreading the word when the internet went down to mobilize (Sarkar, 2024). Moreover, the possibility of live-streaming violence state executions enhanced the overall protest activist fervor, as well as mobilizing the support of more people, transforming the very means of state repression against the state (Sombatpoonsiri, 2025). 4.4 The Socio-Economic Roots of Dissent Behind the cyber savvy and cultural iconography, the main motivation of these insurrections is a systemic frustration with economic disenfranchisement, endemic corruption and the absence of future opportunities. Although every protest had a distinct immediate cause, they all were grounded on this shared grievance as shown in the table below. Table 1. Comparative analysis of socio-Economic roots of dissent among 5 countries Country Core Economic Grievances and Examples Citation Nepal Systemic Corruption and Inequality: The incredible juxtaposition between the rich and the poor, which is revealed through the boasting of luxurious lives by the “nepo kids” over the internet. Crushing inflation and poverty encourage millions of people to work in exploitative jobs in foreign countries. (Khandekar & Kandel, 2025); (The Guardian, 2025) Bangladesh Discriminatory Job Quotas: The first event was a quota system in the civil service which allocated the biggest portion of the jobs to descendants of war veterans who fought in the 1971 which favored the elite members of the ruling party at the time when there was a high rate of inflation and unemployment. (Regan, 2024); (Ganguly, 2024) Morocco Misplaced Governmental Priority and shortage of Public Services: The frustration of poor-quality health and education systems and the government spending billions of dollars on sports facility construction due to hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2030. The main slogan was: “Stadiums are here, but where are hospitals?” (Zaaimi, 2025); (Greene, 2025); (Metz & Oubachir, 2025) Madagascar Basic Service Delivery Failure: Water and electricity in short supply were the immediate igniting factors. The demonstrators pointed to widespread corruption and rotting state services: “And in my house... we are getting no running water in six years, and we are still paying bills.” (IEP Editorial Staff, 2025); (Bartlett & Akinwotu, 2025) Indonesia Lavish Perks for Elites Amid Hardship: Outrage over the legislators having a monthly housing allowance of $3,075, about 20 times the monthly minimum wage in poor communities, amid the people being unable to afford the basic necessities. (Al Jazeera, 2025); (Aggarwal, Bhojwani, & Ganglani, 2025); (Wong, 2025) Especially the situation in Bangladesh can be viewed as a case in point, with the frustration over job quotas exacerbated by the reality that even the most modern channels of economic mobility, such as online freelancing, are as precarious as the formal economy and provide no sense of stability, leaving the young generation in the loop of economic fragility (Hasan, 2025). In all instances, the movements were driven by a sense of an oppressive elite who were stealing wealth and opportunities as the young people population was left to a life of uncertainty. 4.5 “Transformative yet Precarious”: Dueling Media Frames The majority of the Gen-Z uprisings are described in stark dualism in the media as both forces of democratic renaissance and as fragile, chaotic crowds. The frame of Transformative Innovators also exists in the headlines such as that of Al Jazeera: “‘More egalitarian’: How Nepal’s Gen Z used gaming app Discord to elect PM” (Kharel, 2025). According to reports, the movements are disclosed to be digitally sophisticated and unveiled as a shock of high voltages to the system, which is an indication of underlying institutional issues (Baral, 2025; IEP Editorial Staff, 2025). The Bangladesh movement was also being widely praised as “world’s first Gen Z revolution” (Sarkar, 2024). Gen-Z Uprisings in The Global South: Challenging Traditional Political Mobilization and Reshaping Civic Culture IJSSHR, Volume 08 Issue 10 October 2025 www.ijsshr.in Page 7983 The Precarious and Chaotic frame on the other hand highlights the perceived lack of leadership in the movements as well as their vulnerability to manipulation. Certain Western media came under criticism since it distorted the Nepal movement to parallel it with children who are angry that they have been denied access to social media and not as citizens struggling against corruption (Lorenz, 2025). Some critics of the experience of the Discord-led government labelled it as Gen-Z la-la land (Ray, 2025). This frame was actively supported by the government, as the Interior Ministry of Morocco said that demonstrations were hijacked by minors who have burned and ransacked property (Zaaimi, 2025). The frame also indicates that any movement based on the use of social media algorithms to fuel rage is unstable and susceptible to violent actions (Sombatpoonsiri, 2025). Such a dueling story represents a larger general confusion regarding the meanings and ways to participate in this new type of political activity. 5. DISCUSSION: THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS The research results of this study have a number of important implications on the academic knowledge of social movements, political culture, and media. To begin with, this study narrows down our knowledge on networked activism. The gen-Z innovation of hybrid online-offline makes other past theories, like those by Castells (2012), that centered on the internet to produce spaces of autonomy, complicated. The Gen-Z model is characterized by a more tightly intertwined symbiosis, in which the digital world is not merely a place to mobilize, but also to rule and define identities. The example of Discord in Nepal being used to pick an interim leader demonstrates the potential of legitimacy and organizational capacity to be created wholly within a digital network, and offline actions being organized to continue putting pressure on the state. This implies that networked movements have matured and no longer rely on digital tools as a means of communication, but as a means of developing resilient, multi-faceted digital infrastructures of dissent that resist state repression such as internet blackouts. Second, one of the main discoveries of the paper is that culture and performance are central functions as a core political element. Along with the emphasis of Melucci (1989) on the concept of identity construction, the given study demonstrates that to these ideologically heterogeneous movements and lacking an actual leader, symbolic action is no longer the side effect but the main engine of cohesion establishment and the moral command. Reclaiming a Japanese anime flag or reclaiming a political slur is not new and is in fact a complex political gesture that creates a unified identity in the face of no formal leadership or a strict ideology. This builds upon theories of new social movements by showing how globalized, digital popular culture offers an enormous and easily tapped pool of symbols, which can be tactfully used to create local complaints and transnational solidarity. Lastly, the analysis brings out the main problem of sustainability and precarity of the model. Although these movements are vulnerable to state strategies of decapitation because of their decentralized, networked character, it also poses a major impediment to institutional change in the long term. According to those who observe, the leaderless structure hinders long-term decision-making (Wong, 2025), and the algorithm and outrage dependence is not meant to last in the political game (Wong, 2025). It is the essential issue, as one of the former Nepalese bankers said, to convert the voices of the streets into political and institutional power (Baral, 2025). This challenging remodeling of protest into politics, a mobilizing outrage into an institution-based transformation is the precarity of the model. The movements have been unusually effective in disruption and overthrow, yet their capability to manage and implement the systemic changes that they are seeking is an open and a critical issue. CONCLUSION This essay has stated that Gen-Z uprisings in the Global South are setting the stage of a new, hybrid pattern of protest that is transforming civic culture. Having merged transnational digital culture with the localized socio-economic resentment, those movements have managed to disrupt the established authoritarian regimes with a very intricate mix of online governance and faceto-face resistance. They have shown that they can create strong collective identities, beyond the conventional forms of political organization, and through the repertoire of shared assemblage of cultural signs and linguistic strategies they can construct solidarity and moral force. This article has three important contributions. First, in the case of social movement theory it does refine the concept of networked activism to emphasize the shift towards a more complex and resilient hybrid model in which digital platforms play complex governance roles. Second, in the case of political anthropology and sociology, it helps to highlight the centrality of performative and symbolic action in building collective identity in decentralized movements. Third, in the case of media and communication studies, it exposes the competing media frames of transformative innovator and precarious mob that define the objectivity and legitimacy of these new political actors to the people. The main weakness of this research is that it will be based on media analysis. Although media reports are an excellent source of data, they cannot be a replacement of the direct interaction with the activists. To understand the inner mechanics of those movements, their decision-making mechanisms, and its long-term consequences, future researchers should conduct direct qualitative research that could include digital ethnography of platforms like Discord and Tik Tok or use in-depth interviews and longitudinal analyses. In the end, such revolts are an indicator of possible irreparable transition of civic culture. Digital natives, whose future is economic precarity, have discovered new and more effective forms of challenging power. One of the young activists in Bangladesh said, My Gen-Z Uprisings in The Global South: Challenging Traditional Political Mobilization and Reshaping Civic Culture IJSSHR, Volume 08 Issue 10 October 2025 www.ijsshr.in Page 7984 final experience is informing me that the impossible can occur... And perhaps it is not late” (Ghosal, 2024). The ultimate task, both to the activists and to the societies, in which they hope to effect change, will be to harness this disruptive energy into a permanent system change. REFERENCES 1) Aggarwal, M., Bhojwani, J., & Ganglani, J. (2025, September 15). How Gen Z-led protest rattling governments across Asia. NBC News. Retrieved May 28, 2025, from https://www.nbcnews.com/world/asia/protests-asia-gen-z-nepalindonesia-rcna231096 2) Agence France-Presse. (2018, August 5). Unrest in Bangladesh as student road safety protests turn violent. The Guardian. 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