Alana Taylor BTEC Media Blog 2014: Research Into 'Youth Politics' Documentary

Research into 'Youth Politics' Documentary

Participation has always been a struggle when it comes to politics, mostly due to the distrust the public have with the politicians, for example in the General Election 2001 only 59% of the eligible electorate voted. However the turnout is rising with 61% in 2005 and 65% in 2010, (1) our documentary wants to investigate the younger generations apathy towards politics as they are noted to be the least interested in politics with the lowest turnout in that age category. In the 2010 General Election only 44% of young people which has decreased from what used to be 66% in 1987,(2) we are looking at why this is the case and how young people could become more engaged within politics, looking at all the factors, is it the distrust in politicians? or is it that politicians do not represent that age category? therefore causes the disinterest.

Here is what we are basing our documentary on, looking and finding out just how much young people know about politics and therefore to know if they are involved or not and why.

In the 2013 local elections, an estimated 32% of 18-24 year olds voted, compared to the 72% of those aged over 65.(3) This shows there is a crisis in young people voting and questions, should they be more involved as it is their future at steak as well as the other age category's. Additionally according to IPPR's statistics show that young people have been hit the hardest with public spending cuts, with 16-24 year olds facing service cuts up worth 28% of their annual household income.(3)

Labour Policies for Young People.(4)

Here we see political parties are trying to engage young people by situating policies directly for them, trying to include the young generation in politics could solve the participation crisis. However it depends if the issue with politicians is trust then it will be harder to win over their vote and their participation.

Chart to show the percentage of young people not in education and therefore politics could effect them greater if they are in what some may argue as the 'Real World'. (5)

(6)

Above shows the most popular reasons why young peoples votes were lacking in the 2001 General Election, as we've noted the voter turnout has raised since 2001. However turnout in that age category is still significantly low, these are reasons that we will include in our documentary and incorporate these into our interview questions.

(7)

As you can see the 16-24 category above 40% have no interest in politics, I believe this is something to investigate because there is clearly a crucial reason why young people aren't engaged and aren't feeling politics is something that includes them. Even though I believe that the interest is rising possibly due to social media, as political parties and leaders are taking to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to gain that audience's attention which is mostly aimed at the age group of 16-24 year olds.

(8)

(9)

Here we see examples of political propaganda and an example of how they are targeting young people by speaking directly to them, making them feel involved and gathering information from twitter a social media website instead of a news report. In our documentary we will investigate if this has made a bigger impact on young people being involved in politics by the political parties aiming and going through social media to engage them within politics.

We also took part in primary research by creating a survey on Survey Monkey, we wanted to find out about the subject before we produced a documentary about it(10)