Social Media for Change, Social Changes & Politics
Can social media make young people politically active?
Let’s face it- social media is very common within young people in today’s society, but at what cost do they use it? To communicate with their friends? To keep up with the latest update on what’s happening around the world? But have they thought about using social media to speak about their political views?
Social media gives a chance for young people to express their views and opinions based on the current news affair that is happening nationally or internationally. It enables young people to freely comment on what they have to say and gives them a choice of what they like to post.
It has been proven that teenagers are most likely to spend more time on their screen everyday ‘ (17%) of teenagers, defined as 13-17 years old, report spending 4 hours more online every day’ (Ballard, 2019). The hours that teenagers spend browsing online differs from those children who use social media as well- only 14% of children aged between 8-12 ‘report spending four hours or more online everyday’ (Ballard, 2019). What could be the reason behind social media usage? Let us know in the comments!
Social media usage per age group (Taken from YouGOV)
Putting social media aside, let us focus on young people’s engagement within the political sectors. Discussions amongst young individuals have demonstrated that they have no interested in politics. White et al (2000:15) stipulated that not having enough political background can have an impact on young people’s decision on whether they should engage with politics or not- ‘To take an interest in politics was seen to require a technical knowledge about concepts and ideas, which they found difficult to grasp. Sometimes this was thought to be because young people were not exposed to information about politics, either in their homes or at school’. But- WE CAN switch around and make young people believe that their voices are heard!
Below shows a graph of young people and adults’ percentages of votes from 2019
Ipsos (2019): How the voters voted in the 2019 election. Available at: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2019-12/general-election-2019-poll-aggregate-v8.pdf (Accessed at: 23/02/2021)
As you can see from the graph above, the percentage between young people and adults are quite high- only 7% of young people aged 18-24 voted, compared to 74% of adults (Ipsos, 2019). As you can see there is a HUGE gap- you may ask yourself ‘why the huge difference?’- well that’s because older generations are more likely to be influenced to vote for their future, which can leave young people’s voices to be ignored. ‘From a voting perspective, younger voices are being drowned out by older people, who vote in droves. And that means the older population has more of an influence, which means political parties shape their policies to cater for that.’ (Bellinger, 2007). So how social media can help young people to be politically engaged?
As we all know that social media is a highly influential mode of communication in today’s young people’s lives and they use it for various reasons, as noted above. Even though there is a decline within youth political engagement ‘it is often suggested that social media can provide solution to this challenge’ (Keating & Melis, 2017:877). This can be done in various ways: young people on Twitter are able to see what’s ‘trending’, those on Facebook can see what is trending on their ‘News Feed’ and those who are on Instagram can see what the hot topics shown on their ‘Explore’ feeds. This way, for young people, it is easier for them to get involved and share their views and opinions within these three social medias.
Especially during the times between: Covid-19 pandemic, politics and Black Lives Matter Movement, it gave so many young people a chance to participate online and share their voices. The results were shown that ‘70% of young people had gotten information about the 2020 election on social media and 36% reported posting political content in the week prior. Over 60% of youth said that creating social media content helped them feel more informed, represented, and heard, although differences in these benefits exist across gender and race/ethnicity.’ (Booth et al., 2020). This shows that young people are now getting more and more involved within politics, thanks to social media.
The below graph also shows the differences of social media usage between the year of 2018 and 2020 used by young adults (ages 18-24) in relation to election.
Graph showing the social media usage between September 2018 and May 2020
With social media being used widely within young people in relation to election, this enabled them to gain knowledge and share their opinion on the issues that matters to them ‘young people are using it more to share opinions and information about social and political issue’ (Booth et al., 2020).
Improvements for near future? I suggest that young people should be taught ‘Citizenship’ curriculum across the whole year and should be involved in different type of activities to increase their awareness!
Bibliography:
Ballard, J., 2019. Teens use these social media platforms the most | YouGov. [online] Today.yougov.com. Available at: <https://today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2019/10/25/teens-social-media-use-online-survey-poll-youth> [Accessed 20 February 2021].
Bellinger, S., 2017. Why don’t young people vote?. [Blog] BLOGS, UK YOUNG AMBASSADORS, Available at: <https://www.byc.org.uk/blog/why-dont-young-people-vote> [Accessed 23 February 2021].
Booth, R., Tombaugh, E., Kiesa, A., Lundberg, K. and Cohen, A., 2020. Young People Turn to Online Political Engagement During COVID-19. [online] Circle.tufts.edu. Available at: <https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/young-people-turn-online-political-engagement-during-covid-19> [Accessed 23 February 2021].
Ipsos.com. 2019. How the voters voted in the 2019 election. [online] Available at: <https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2019-12/general-election-2019-poll-aggregate-v8.pdf> [Accessed 23 February 2021].
Keating, A. and Melis, G., 2017. Social media and youth political engagement: Preaching to the converted or providing a new voice for youth?. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 19(4), p.877.
Sheffield Hallam University, 2017. Are young people disengaged from Politics?.
Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1tCNlAItdU> [Accessed 21 February 2021].
White, C., Bruce, S. and Ritchie, J., 2000. Young people’s politics Political interest and engagement amongst 14–24 year olds. [online] Jrf.org.uk. Available at: <https://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/default/files/jrf/migrated/files/1859353096.pdf> [Accessed 23 February 2021].
April 2, 2021 at 6:38 pm
Hi Lalene! This is an a very interesting blog! I loved your use of statistics throughout, it made it very easy to understand your points 😊 I cannot believe that only 7% of young people voted in the 2019 general election, I thought that it was much higher than that. How shocking! I was not taught much about politics when I was younger and so had never really been interested until I came to university. Do you think young people are becoming uninterested in voting because they are able to share their political opinion online? Or do you think it’s a matter of young people lacking interest in politics? I completely agree with your improvements for the future section in which you support citizenship education. I think this is really important in helping young kids understand their democracy and how important their right to vote is. I have really enjoyed reading your blag. Thank you for engaging in this conversation with me 😊
April 19, 2021 at 5:41 pm
Hi Talia!
Thank you for taking your time out to read my blog! I really appreciate it 🙂
I was in the same boat as you when I found out that less number of young people have participated in the 2019 General Election and that was shocking! I feel we’re in the same boat again when it comes to being taught citizenship at school haha. Up until when I was in year 11, we haven’t been taught citizenship in full detail- it was mostly about: work, future life and climate change, but when I was starting to learn about what it means for your voices to be heard, I was confused and a bit upset that our schools should have taught this at an early age.
The two questions that you have raised are really good! I believe that young people are politically disengaged simply because of two reasons: simply because they believe their voices will not be heard by the government and lacking interests.
Not being heard by the government often put young people off from voting as they simply believe that no matter how hard they try and vote, at the end of the day they will simply be pushed back in the society and only older generation’s voices will be heard. Lacking interest is another reason- young people simply lack interest in politics as they don’t have enough knowledge about politics, they don’t know who to vote for and often their needs are not being met.
I hope you enjoyed reading my post and I will see you around 🙂