Dr Ed Bracho-Polanco, a Senior Lecturer in Communication at the University of Westminster, has recently spoken to global educational news service for young people News Decoder on why he thinks a large population of the younger generation seem to be uninterested in voting and national politics, and how technology plays a part.
The article talks about the stigma behind young people being uninterested in politics, offering the possibility that the reason for this may be the lack of interest the government shows toward them.
Bracho-Polanco explained that one of the deterrents is that the UK is still using a traditional system of voting in the digital age where numerous kinds of technology exist that the young generation have grown up in and are therefore accustomed to. Voting still involves the physical resources of pen and paper and cut-off dates for registration. He suggested that there could be a more updated and advanced way of voting. “An introduction, maybe, to rolling register, the use of newer technology. Maybe not having to go to work on polling stations but to be able to vote from home or from a supermarket, from a coffee shop, online.”
Another key reason Bracho-Polanco states is behind young people’s disinterest towards voting is that their core values and priorities are not aligned with that of the government. He said that they were more concerned about identity politics, which includes subject areas such as race, gender, class, homelessness, poverty, environmental issues and religion, rather than party politics which focuses on areas such as tax finances, macroeconomics, microeconomics and foreign policy. He thinks that “it is a really big and loaded topic that’s hardly a part of the campaign processes and narratives”. Therefore, the political campaigns “become so irrelevant to this group of young people, millennials and post-millennials, that they decide to avoid participation in large numbers.”
He added: “One could make the case that young people are apathetic, not so much out of sort of an interest in other things or becoming depoliticised but in fact, it’s actually the politicians and the political parties that for them, for young people, are indifferent, are not interested towards them, are complacent and that their campaign is more focused on older generations.”
Read the full article on News Decoder.
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