I don't approve of political jokes…I've seen too many of them get elected.
2 thoughts on “BLOG 1 Young People and Political Engagement”
An amazing informative blog focusing predominantly on one event and that being the March For Our Lives Campaign. Your engagement through a number of different sources and not just focusing political engagement on voting. The use of the question as your blog title draws the reader in straight away. One way in which a slight improvement could be made is by placing more images in the blog to make it more catchy.
The best thing about this post is that your passion for the subject really sells it! It is astounding to me that young people are still describes as ‘apathetic’ when it comes to political issues. Like you said, there have been so many movements that are clearly led and participated by young people. Whilst you make the case of the March for Our Lives movement, the recent Climate Strike also comes to mind – how millions of young people from all over the world took a stand and made it very clear that they were not only interested, but passionate about their future and how they are concerned about how government policies affect them in their day to day lives.
I think the real issue here is how youth engagement is actually measured. The current political arena is severely outdated in the way they measure political engagement; limiting it to only the formal processes within politics, such as voting even though young people simply engage differently (especially in the digital age that we are living in). The statistics are disappointing when they are presented; like how Circle found that less than half of eligible young voters did not cast their vote in 2012. But maybe young people ARE disillusioned when it comes to the actual government, and political institutions, and THAT’s why they arent necessarily voting.
Like your post clearly presents, we do care about political issues, and we find our own ways to participate. If signing petitions, participating on movements in person and online, and giving speaches arent enough – like you present in Appendix 1, our turnout is also on the rise. Therefore, your call for getting thinking caps on is definitely warranted. I would say though, that instead of calling for getting the thinking caps on to build a society that young people are proud of – it should also be to find creative and innovative ways to make sure that young people are engaged with in the way that they are engaging.
In the UK, the 2017 General Election is a great example of this, through Jeremy Corbyn utilising the forums where young people congregate: social media platforms. This proved to be quite effective for not only the Labour party, but also for increasing voter turnout amongst young people during the election. I believe that innovation and creativity should also be brought to the table when considering improving access to voting – such as potentially implementing a process whereby young people can vote online. If we manage our national insurance information (e.g. taxes), or even our council-related matters online, then why can’t we vote online too? Then, it just becomes a simple link to click for young people that need to go through the same verification processes that we do when we want to see the information the government holds about us.
Your post therefore succeeds in shining a light on the issues and the passion that concern young people. This is an issue that definitely needs to be tackled, and this blog post is that one step closer to bringing the type of awareness necessary to hopefully achieve a solution!
An amazing informative blog focusing predominantly on one event and that being the March For Our Lives Campaign. Your engagement through a number of different sources and not just focusing political engagement on voting. The use of the question as your blog title draws the reader in straight away. One way in which a slight improvement could be made is by placing more images in the blog to make it more catchy.
The best thing about this post is that your passion for the subject really sells it! It is astounding to me that young people are still describes as ‘apathetic’ when it comes to political issues. Like you said, there have been so many movements that are clearly led and participated by young people. Whilst you make the case of the March for Our Lives movement, the recent Climate Strike also comes to mind – how millions of young people from all over the world took a stand and made it very clear that they were not only interested, but passionate about their future and how they are concerned about how government policies affect them in their day to day lives.
I think the real issue here is how youth engagement is actually measured. The current political arena is severely outdated in the way they measure political engagement; limiting it to only the formal processes within politics, such as voting even though young people simply engage differently (especially in the digital age that we are living in). The statistics are disappointing when they are presented; like how Circle found that less than half of eligible young voters did not cast their vote in 2012. But maybe young people ARE disillusioned when it comes to the actual government, and political institutions, and THAT’s why they arent necessarily voting.
Like your post clearly presents, we do care about political issues, and we find our own ways to participate. If signing petitions, participating on movements in person and online, and giving speaches arent enough – like you present in Appendix 1, our turnout is also on the rise. Therefore, your call for getting thinking caps on is definitely warranted. I would say though, that instead of calling for getting the thinking caps on to build a society that young people are proud of – it should also be to find creative and innovative ways to make sure that young people are engaged with in the way that they are engaging.
In the UK, the 2017 General Election is a great example of this, through Jeremy Corbyn utilising the forums where young people congregate: social media platforms. This proved to be quite effective for not only the Labour party, but also for increasing voter turnout amongst young people during the election. I believe that innovation and creativity should also be brought to the table when considering improving access to voting – such as potentially implementing a process whereby young people can vote online. If we manage our national insurance information (e.g. taxes), or even our council-related matters online, then why can’t we vote online too? Then, it just becomes a simple link to click for young people that need to go through the same verification processes that we do when we want to see the information the government holds about us.
Your post therefore succeeds in shining a light on the issues and the passion that concern young people. This is an issue that definitely needs to be tackled, and this blog post is that one step closer to bringing the type of awareness necessary to hopefully achieve a solution!