Priorities: who decides them? Young people?

The theming for this blog is around young people and their political engagement. In this blog, I will be opening the discussion around how Britain’s young people are, and are not, engaging in politics, and why this may be. Is there someone or something to be blamed?

 

To investigate this further we can focus on an issue young people have expressed passionately about. In this example, I have chosen to exemplify young people’s political engagement through the Climate Crisis. Over the last few decades, young people have stepped up and voiced their opinions on our impact on the climate. Young people have become active citizens and have been proactively demanding lasting change. The climate demonstrations that took place across the world in 2019 illustrated the extent young people were prepared to engage with political change. To further this, the climate strikes took place in 110 countries across 1,400 cities (Taylor, 2019). These figures show how a ‘youthquake’ is tackling the Climate Crisis. These Climate Strikes have been great examples of how young people engaging in politics can and will create global shock waves that drive change.  Commenting on climate strikes without a mention of Greta Thunberg would be unjust. Greta Thunberg, a teenage activist, created political shock waves around the world demanding change. She embodies how young people engaging in politics can change the way the world thinks. However, has there been the change desired? In Greta’s speech at the United Nations, she made powerful statements that were driven by emotion and urgency.

 

We can see in the speech she begs to be heard. Is this because she herself cannot make the systematic change desired? However, these ‘youthquakes’ create a hostile pressure for change. A pressure on democracy, the most powerful tool for political change.

 

A cynical twist, do these ‘youthquakes’ actually translate being an active citizen into creating legal changes. In short, I don’t believe there is a right answer. It depends on how we believe impactful change is made. To explain, more optimistic people like to believe that change comes from the people. The commonly used expression “we don’t need one person making perfect changes, we need 1000 people making imperfect changes”. This kind of thinking is regularly applied to the Climate Crisis. It inhabits hopeful thinking that people make impactful changes by taking action and engaging with a matter they care about. The examples of protests and democracy above exemplify this line of thinking.

 

On the other hand, there is the pessimistic line of thought that changes have to come from the minority who hold power. Using the example of the Climate Crisis, this would be large government organisations, oil companies and other global organisations such as the European Union or the United Nations. This way of thinking believes that a few powerful people have the ability to make change through legislation. They have the power to lead large-scale change. To put into the context of the UK, large-scale legal changes come from British Parliament; but who has control of British parliament?

I have highlighted the most recent data, our 2019 MP’s (Members of Parliament). This table states that only 21 of 650 MPs are aged 18-29. Meaning that only 3.2% of MPs are young people (Watson, 2020). This can have numerous repercussions, some being that Britain’s youth find it hard to relate to Parliament or that Parliament does not reflect the opinions of young adults today, concluding a vicious cycle of little youth engagement in British politics. But with this all being said, democracy controls our Parliament, and democracy is controlled by the people, this puts a full 180 twist on this argument with no conclusive answer.

 

So, why can we not change the fact that British politics is dominated by baby boomers? Well, just one of the possible reasons for this is political news does not reach out to the younger population. British youth are not hearing about the issues affecting the nation. Looking at the 2019 OFCOM statics on news viewers, the over 65s (black bar) consume that content far more than the younger population (OFCOM,2020).

By focusing on the yellow bar we can see a constant pattern across all the news channels that there are very low viewer ratings for 16-24-year-olds. This can have a couple of side effects. Firstly, young people are not being informed on political matters. Secondly, the news outlets will not cover topics that appeal to the younger generations. Without a formal media outreach for the young British adults, they have turned to social media, taking initiative and making systemic change by being proactive. They have mobilised movements by utilising platforms targeted at their age group. This loops back to the Climate Strikes which were globalised on social media platforms.

 

As there are no right answers on how to politically engage, one thing I think should be highlighted is we should all keep trying. Concluding with, who makes priorities and who makes changes will never have a definitive answer. There is no one size fits all for global problems. Therefore, it is important to keep fighting for what you believe is right! All matters matter, big or small. We make our own priorities and engaging with politics helps get those priorities noticed.

 

Bibliography

‘You have Stolen My Dreams and My Childhood’ Greta Thunberg Tells UN | AFP (2019) Directed by Anonymous. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lWJLwbfNo0 .

News Consumption in the UK. (2020) Available at: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/tv-radio-and-on-demand/news-media/news-consumption.

BARB. (2020) What People Watch: Age Profile of News Viewing.

BBC (2016) EU referendum: The result in maps and charts.

Matthew Taylor (2019) Latest global school climate strikes expected to beat turnout record. The Guardian (London). May 24, Available at: https://search.proquest.com/docview/2229983577 .

United Nations #YouthStats: Environment and Climate Change.

Watson, C. (2020) House of commons trends: The age of MPs.