Beck (2002) theoretical explanation of individualisation of decisions in a society which is termed as a risk society, where the state having become absent has had negative effect on younger people because this has had an devastating impact on the personal/social wellbeing of younger people who have a low financial economic status which has caused benefits being reduced and major cutbacks in funding in the education sector. This has led young people becoming alienated from the British political system, James Sloam (2007) believes Beck (2002) provides the key answer to why young people are politically disengaged through the withdrawal of the state. Looking more deeper into the explanations given behind the political disengagement amongst younger people, there seems to be a worrying large inequality between the two generations; younger people and older people. This has been illustrated by Park (2004) research findings which found that younger people were more politically disengaged then the previous generation was at their age. This was however due to not being able to express their political opinion, not having their voices and concerns heard by the political parties. Furthermore, Matthew et al (2005) suggests that young people have no connection or relation with any political leading figures or parties, they feel that the views and principles in which they stand for are not being represented or voiced in the political parties’ manifestos, in fact they are largely ignored. Whereas, older people feel they can connect with political parties and have their voices heard by having an implementation of those ideas through the parties policies.
In figure one above we can see a stark difference in the general election turnout between younger and older people, which supports the idea that older people are more politically engaged then younger people. The data shows that 43 % of 18-24 year olds voted in the 2015 general election compared to 72% of 55 -64 year olds and 73% of 65+. Keating and Melis (2017) argue that when comparing younger and older people, younger people are seen as homogenous group and the differences in age are not really considered. Smets (2015) suggests that younger people are less politically engaged due to the fact they are in the midst of transition into adulthood, finishing their education and looking for employment, too occupied to engage in politics seeing it as an extra activity.
Could social media be the solution? The little recent research which has emerged for young people and political engagement shows that young people prefer to go on social media to inform themselves of current news events, this has proven to increase political engagement amongst young people having a positive effect (Bachmann and De Zuniga 2013). Kahne et al (2013) showed empirically that young people through non-political online activity have shown to be active in political life through protest activities, contributing towards their local communities and political voice. Boulianne (2015) suggests that social media has only been available to the current young generation whereas it was not available to the previous generation, this emergence has provided a platform for younger people to become politically engaged, where political opinions are created, showing more younger people to be politically active on social media compared to older people.
Despite the recent emerging research which is giving a mixed unclear indication that young people are using the social media to engage actively in politics. The overwhelming research shows that, in fact younger people are no more politically engaged than older people on social media. Feezell (2016) argues when assessing closely the use of internet for political engagement, age is merely a predictor of overlooking the access of internet usage; rather than a factor to determine the level of political engagement, clearly showing younger people are not political engaging via the internet, but using it for personal and entertainment purposes, showing a small minority to express themselves politically by expressing their opinion and ideological belief on the social media platform. However, the question arises is to which category of young people are using the social media to engage politically? Interestingly, research suggests that socio economic inequalities lie in the usage of social media for political engagement, Oser et al (2013) points out those who are from lower income backgrounds have limited access , which then implies overwhelmingly very few young people are politically engaged on social media leaving access to the wealthy upper class young community to formulate a political opinion which is a reflection of their interests and concern; leading to a further disadvantage for the younger lower class community which causes them to be more distant from politics. Below in figure 2 clearly demonstrates the theoretical explanation given above, there is strong clear socio economic inequalities in relation to class which is reflected in the level of political engagement amongst young people.
( Data provided by Youth Quake; young people and the 2017 general election)
The research data results above show that younger people who were in a higher social grade or were full time students were more politically engaged through turning out to vote for the 2017 general election compared to those young people who had a low social grade, a sharp difference of 19%. This then further disengages certain young people from particular communities in engaging in politics, especially from the lower educational backgrounds and from ethnic minorities. There is no particular evidence from this data to show that younger people who came out to vote did so through due to their increase in political engagement via social media. Smith et al (2015) suggests that young people who are politically engaging through social media are those who have been involved before the emergence of this platform; it is not bringing in a new generation of young people from having no interest in engaging politics to becoming politically engaged. James Sloam (2017) argues that from these results we can see the turnout gap between full time education students and the average UK citizen to be very small, however those younger people who have low or non participation it is suggested that this due to lack of campaigning which is targeted to their needs, feeling a sense of resentment and politicians not reaching out to them. Overall, this shows younger people are not politically engaging through social media but rather using it for personal and entertainment purposes, majority of research and data supporting this hypothesis.
References:
Hanley, B. (2015). How to Get More Young People Involved in Politics. Available: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-hanley/how-to-get-more-young-peo_b_8562196.html.
Ipsos MORI (2015) How Britain voted in 2015. Trillium Systems. Accessed 19/02/17 from https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3575/How-Britain-voted-in-2015.aspx?view=print.
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.
Sloam, J. (2007). Rebooting Democracy: Youth Participation in Politics in the UK. Parliamentary Affairs, 60(4), pp.548-567.
Sloam, J. (2011). Introduction: Youth, Citizenship and Politics. Parliamentary Affairs, 65(1), pp.4-12.
Sloam, J. (2013). Young people are less likely to vote than older citizens, but they are also more diverse in how they choose to participate in politics.. Available: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/07/19/young-people-are-less-likely-to-vote-than-older-citizens-but-they-are-also-more-diverse-in-how-they-choose-to-participate-in-politics/.
Theocharis, Y. and Quintelier, E. (2014). Stimulating citizenship or expanding entertainment? The effect of Facebook on adolescent participation. New Media & Society, 18(5), pp.817-836.