Political Participation and engagement can include signing petitions, joining a party, casting a vote and more. Political participation can be described as “activities by private citizens that are more or less directly aimed at influencing the selection of governmental personnel and/or the actions they take” (Verba and Nie 1972).
Studies have shown that the lowest scores in majority areas of political participation for young people and that young people are not sufficiently engaged in politics. This view is based upon trends such as voting in elections, where young people have the lowest rates, which only continue to decrease just as the level of youth membership in political parties is decreasing (Kimberlee, et al. 2002).
While the 2017 General Election result was described as a ‘youthquake’ – a shock result founded on an unexpected surge in youth turnout and the overwhelming support of younger voters for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party; overall, there were more older voters than younger people. Shown in the table below, you are able to see the turnout of voters in the 2017 general election. While 57% of 18- and 19-year-olds participated in voting, for those aged 70+ the figure was 84%.
Even though research has suggested that the younger electorate are increasingly disengaged with the democratic system, young people are however more likely to express themselves politically in different forms. For example: boycotting environmentally unfriendly products.
One reason for this outcome could be due to the increase of social media usage by young people in recent years. Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) found that many young people- aged 18-24 found out about the 2018 midterm elections via “one of the four most commonly used social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
The Internet plays a significant role in providing information to the public on political events, which in turn helps to engage and encourage its users to get involved in offline political activities. Social media, to be more specific, can serve two main functions in this context.
Firstly, social media offers new ways of communication through which established political institutions and actors can reach out to young people. Alternatively, young people are using social media to redefine political engagement. This is achieved by finding new and different ways such as online activities that relate to politics, to express their political preferences rather than traditional political engagement, such as voting or joining a political party. Social media has also allowed young people to get involved in political discussion through various online groups, pages, and accounts. This is a significant way young people are encouraged to participate in political events through the use of social media. (Quintelier and Vissers, 2008).
Considering recent situations regarding covid-19, it is found that even more young people have turned towards social media as a way to engage with politics. Online activism among young people is associated with offline forms of civic and political activism, giving the young people various ways to participate and get involved with issues they care about and build a political identity; for example, social movements like Black Lives Matter. While young people were already hearing about elections more on social media than directly from campaigns, the pandemic renewed emphasis on online spaces to increase engagement among young people. Therefore, this shift toward online engagement may better reach young voters.
With this increase use of social media throughout the years and circumstances such as covid-19, it has allowed for more alternative forms of political engagement, such as protesting, boycotts and demonstrations for young people to engage with. In the graph below you are able to see the trends of such alternative forms of political engagement throughout the years increasing.
Social media is one main reason for this trend as young people are using platforms to share opinions and information about social and political issues. In September 2018, 18% of young people (ages 18-24) reported posting content they created on social media about politics in the month before being asked.
One example includes since the murder of George Floyd (2020), social media
activism has surged on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Floyd’s murder marked a turning point in Twitter conversations around #BlackLivesMatter. This resulted in thousands of protesters who gathered offline in many countries to protest anti-Black racism and to support the Black Lives Matter movement. Scholarly research has shown that online and offline activism are integrated and are positively correlated. This suggests that online activism encourages offline protest by serving as a way to ease people into offline action and help them form their identity.
Watch this short clip which demonstrates how during the pandemic, social media has proved to be effective in rallying the younger generation.
so what are the issues with social media?
While it can be argued social media has given a new voice to young people, social media spaces do not represent and serve everyone equally. While many young people stated that they have experienced various benefits of creating political posts online, more than a third agreed that they feel scared to voice their political opinions online because they don’t feel qualified enough to do so. Moreover, misogyny exists within online spaces which only adds on the higher rates of harassment and cyberbullying towards women. While social media has emerged as an even more salient mode of activism due to covid-19, online spaces are not always equitable and inclusive.
Additionally, social media can also often provide misinformation, which can be a significant issue especially regarding important matters like politics. Robots can aggressively comment and like certain politicians’ posts. ‘Bad actors’ photoshop images or create fake videos. Party aligned supporters flood social posts or channels, commenting and reposting support for a candidate and liking partisan posts. Spread of misinformation is encouraged as users are more likely to think news is accurate when it is shared by someone they trust. As the misinformation continues to get shared, it becomes favoured over trustworthy content in users’ feeds as it becomes ‘popular content’. (FlamminiCiampaglia et al. 2018).
Overall, young people still have a significant disengagement with the democratic system and a small number of young people have any interest in politics. With that said, social media has played a major role in more young people engaging with politics, in various forms. While I wouldn’t call this movement a ‘youthquake’ at this moment in time, there is a possibility for a larger youth turnout in voters in the future if social media trends and activism continues.
Bibliography
‘Most Young Lack Interest in Politics – Official Survey’. BBC News, 21 Feb. 2014. www.bbc.co.uk, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-26271935.
‘Youth Political Engagement in the Era of Social Media’. Harvard Political Review, 4 Dec. 2013,
Auxier, B. (2020) ‘Social Media Continue to Be Important Political Outlets for Black Americans’. Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/12/11/social-media-continue-to-be-important-political-outlets-for-black-americans/. Accessed 20 Feb. 2022.
Guess, A. M. and Lyons, B. A. (2020) “Misinformation, Disinformation, and Online Propaganda,” in Persily, N. and Tucker, J. A. (eds) Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field, Prospects for Reform. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (SSRC Anxieties of Democracy), pp. 10–33.
How Britain Voted at the 2017 General Election | YouGov. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/06/13/how-britain-voted-2017-general-election. Accessed 20 Feb. 2022.
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), pp. 877–894. doi: 10.1177/1369148117718461.
Protests, Politics, and Power: Exploring the Connections Between Youth Voting and Youth Movements. https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/protests-politics-and-power-exploring-connections-between-youth-voting-and-youth. Accessed 20 Feb. 2022.
Sloam, J. (2014) ‘New Voice, Less Equal: The Civic and Political Engagement of Young People in the United States and Europe’, Comparative Political Studies, 47(5), pp. 663–688. doi: 10.1177/0010414012453441.
Sloam, J., Ehsan, R. and Henn, M. (2018) ‘‘Youthquake’: How and Why Young People Reshaped the Political Landscape in 2017’, Political Insight, 9(1), pp. 4–8. doi: 10.1177/2041905818764697.
The Young and Restless, Part 4: How Young People Use Social Media for Political Mobilization – DU Clarion. https://duclarion.com/2020/10/the-young-and-restless-part-4-how-young-people-use-social-media-for-political-mobilization/. Accessed 20 Feb. 2022.
Weiss, J. (2020) ‘What Is Youth Political Participation? Literature Review on Youth Political Participation and Political Attitudes’. Frontiers in Political Science, vol. 2, 2020. Frontiers, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2020.00001
Young People Turn to Online Political Engagement During COVID-19. https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/young-people-turn-online-political-engagement-during-covid-19. Accessed 20 Feb. 2022.
Andrew Axelsson
I agree with what you said at the end of your blog Arooj. Personally I feel like young people today have become too dependent on social media for their news and political engagement. I think it can be a useful way to create a sense of community around a movement, but when the platforms become the focus point for how people learn about events and communicate with one another it starts to become a problem. I think it’s great that there is a new way to engage with politics that allows young people to feel more engaged, but for so many people their online engagement is their only political engagement. What are your thoughts on how young people can become more politically engaged without being so dependent on social media as their source of engagement?
Arooj Tariq
Hi Andrew, thanks for your comment!
I think young people can become more politically engaged without being so dependent on social media through formal structures such as Youth councils, youth parliaments and youth boards. This can encourage young people to play an active role in their communities and teach vital skills that support wider economic development, such as communications skills, planning and project management, and advocacy.
As well as this, service learning, which takes a combined measure of political engagement, for example: petition signing, protest and voting, is potentially another way to get youths more politically engaged without relying so much on social media. In fact, the National Citizen Service Trust (NCS Trust) found service learning increases young people’s participation in politics by 12%! Service-learning programmes like NCS can light the political spark in young people by building their confidence to engage in new social and political situations.
While social media plays a huge role in the increase of youth political participation, as my blog discusses, it is definitely not the only way young people can become more politically engaged. I’m glad I got to explore more factors which contribute towards youth political participation. If youre interested in learning more, here’s a Guardian article you could have a look at which addresses how to get young people to vote, for example: Better political education in schools.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/11/12-ways-get-generation-y-voting-referendum
Thanks again for your comment, hope this helps 🙂
Arooj Tariq
Hi Lue, glad you found my blog and viewpoint captivating! I also think it’s a very controversial topic. I find it interesting how mention echo chambers, I see how your argument relates to my blog. I think you explained the concept perfectly, and I had a read of the links you kindly shared with me. Echo chambers seems to be a phenomenon that is difficult to steer away from, but I found some possible solutions if you were wondering how we as individuals can minimize this. A few include, adding in a few media sources with differing opinions, which allows us to at least understand what people are saying outside of your echo chamber. Also making sure we read each thing you see with a critical eye and to make sure that each thing you accept as truth is truly fact. Another way is to attempt to search out reliable new sources that are known for trying their best to filter out false narratives. While I understand this can be difficult for all users of social media, it definitely is a start. I wonder if you have any thought on how we can avoid echo chambers so young people’s political engagement online isn’t stifled. Hope you find my response interesting, thanks again for sharing your thoughts with me 🙂
Luc Charles
Hey Arooj,
I find it really interesting and important that while you argue that social media is a major catalyst for young people’s engagement in politics, you also state and investigate some of new media’s limitations and downfalls. I find this so captivating because the discussion over whether social media and the net enable people’s authentic political participation is so controversial and topical. While social media has been praised for increasing political involvement in young people, this political engagement can be problematic and doesn’t always lead to positive social change as you say with issues like the spread of misinformation from ‘robots’ and cyberbullying.
There is another serious issue that social media and the online world can create that I think you may find interesting.
Have you heard of how social media provides its users with knowledge and links that are very similar to the information and connections that they previously looked at, took part in and searched for online?
I would like to add to your argument that social media may have limits for young people’s political engagement. Through robotic computerised algorithms, social media can contribute to the creation of ‘echo chambers’ which are basically online locations on social media such as blogs, chat rooms or groups where people’s existing beliefs and opinions are reinforced because they only come across like-minded people and encounter the same ideas and information that they have previously engaged with. This means that for the main users of social media which are young people, their political views and opinions are not developed or reasonably challenged. Because of this, healthy suitable political debate and conversation does not occur, and young people’s political engagement online is stifled.
Here are a couple of links that underline what I have spoken about in my comment that you can look at, if it helps or if anything is unclear. The second link speaks of how the social media platform twitter harbours and creates ‘echo chambers’ and explains further why ‘echo chambers’ occur and the psychology behind it. This is something that I couldn’t expand on in my comment here, but that provides more understanding of the phenomena if you find it interesting. Thanks again for your stimulating blog and thought provoking ideas 🙂 .
https://advertising.utexas.edu/news/what-social-media-echo-chamber
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/04/twitter-accounts-really-are-echo-chambers-study-finds
Arooj Tariq
Hi Lue, glad you found my blog and viewpoint captivating! I also think it’s a very controversial topic. I find it interesting how mention echo chambers, I see how your argument relates to my blog. I think you explained the concept perfectly, and I had a read of the links you kindly shared with me. Echo chambers seems to be a phenomenon that is difficult to steer away from, but I found some possible solutions if you were wondering how we as individuals can minimize this. A few include, adding in a few media sources with differing opinions, which allows us to at least understand what people are saying outside of your echo chamber. Also making sure we read each thing you see with a critical eye and to make sure that each thing you accept as truth is truly fact. Another way is to attempt to search out reliable new sources that are known for trying their best to filter out false narratives. While I understand this can be difficult for all users of social media, it definitely is a start. I wonder if you have any thought on how we can avoid echo chambers so young people’s political engagement online isn’t stifled. Hope you find my response interesting, thanks again for sharing your thoughts with me 🙂