Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The Role of Social Media in American Politics pols essay
impact of social media on public life
The effect of social media and the news on American politics essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The American youth voted in fewer numbers during Obama's reelection than for his first term. Michael P. McDonald points out this simple fact in his Huffington Post article from May 2013. He explains this decline both statistically and through the theory of mobilization, the later of which lacks substance and direction. He assumes the decline is because of campaigns failures to engage the youth, completely ignoring the complex motives behind a young voters turnout. Through the rational choice and resource models, these motives can be better deciphered. Additionally, McDonald only holds campaigns responsible for mobilization failures disregarding social interaction and the resultant effects of indirect mobilization.
McDonald’s article, “2012 Election: A Failure to Mobilize the Youth Vote”, clearly states that young voters voted less in 2012 than in 2008. Cited from the US Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS), voters age 18 to 24 turned out 6.2 percent less in battle ground states and 8.8 percent less in all other states in the 2012 election. For a portion of the article McDonald explains this difference by way of a statistical non-response bias. Non-response, a natural error in surveying due to subject noncooperation, is unavoidable when polling the public. He notes that the CPS included non-response subjects as having not voted, a flaw in representing the data. His statistic reasoning is sound, but his theoretical explanation for the decline is underdeveloped. McDonald focuses his entire argument on mobilization. “The Obama campaign appears to be only marginally successful at counteracting youth disengagement through their mobilization efforts” (McDonald). He uses the dismal turnout numbers to then back up this clai...
... middle of paper ...
...02:1 pp. 33-48.
"Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey." Beaura of Labor Statistics. US Government, n.d. Web. 4 Mar. 2014. .
McDonald, Michael P. "2012 Election: A Failure to Mobilize the Youth Vote." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 10 May 2013. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.
"Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change." Pew Research Centers Social Demographic Trends Project. Pew Research, 24 Feb. 2010. Web. 04 Mar. 2014.
Rosenstone, Steven J., and John Mark Hansen. 1993. Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Pg. 25-37; 161-179 (BB)
Rutledge, Dr. Pamela. "How Obama Won the Social Media Battle in the 2012 Presidential Campaign." Pamela Rutledge Media Psychology Blog. The Media Pschology Blog, 25 Jan. 2013. Web. 05 Mar. 2014.
In chapter one, Wattenberg discusses the declining trends of Americans who regularly read newspapers between the 1960’s and present day. This can be attributed the aging patterns among generations who frequently read newspapers as well as with the use of technology rising. Reading the newspaper is a habit that either is or is not developed by the time one reaches voting age. With this, newspapers have become an older generation’s primary source of information, however, are still the best source for political matters. Younger generations tend to be more computer literate and have grown up with television and media more accessible to them than the previous generation. These trends not only reflect in American culture, but in other countries worldwide such as Italy, and Germany. Quoting a 2003 fox news interview of President Bush, Wattenberg illustrates the vast decline of newspaper consumption; even the U.S. President isn’t reading newspapers (11). Using tables throughout chapter one to illustrate the drastic differences within the last 50 years, the author exemplifies a 35% point decrease from 1957 to 2004. He speculates that perhaps young adults don’t like to read, but proves that is not the case as surveys have shown that education levels have risen overall, and access to books and reading has also increased over the years; thereby concluding that young people read, but do not typically read the newspaper. While there are several newspaper websites available, young adults do not frequently read those websites either. Although TV news information is not as detailed as it is in newspapers, young people have an ability to make up for their disinterest in newspapers by watching the news headlines (30). Chapter one makes a strong case...
Many political analysts argue that engagement is an important characteristic of democracy, yet the younger generation is indifferent towards politics. They’re more interested in the latest iPhone technology than in campaigning or voting. In The Good Citizen: How a Younger Generation Is Reshaping American Politics, author Russell J. Dalton counters this with the idea that Gen X’ers are still engaged, just in a different way.
Over time, the youth vote has changed by the amount of youth voting, who they vote for, and the racial differences among the voters. Youth voting is still the lowest
It is our civic right and duty to actively participate in governmental affairs. This recent election really highlighted the divide in opinion regarding the importance of governmental participation. “To many, our democratic system seems so broken that they have simply lost faith that their participation could really matter,” West writes in his essay entitled The Deep Democratic Tradition in America. Young people feel unimportant and irrelevant, which explains the lack in turnout from young voters ages 18-29. However, it wasn’t just young voters that didn’t turnout. Millions of eligible voters didn’t show up for the 2016 elections. A democracy without active participants is a democracy bound for
It’s very unsettling to know that there was a six percent decrease in young voters (ages 18-29) in the 2012 election compared to 2008 (Circle Youth data). In 2007 the National Conference of State Legislatures publicly released a report and data set on voter turnout in democratic countries. This is a quote from that report titled Getting out the Vote, “It should be noted that in 1972, 18-year-olds were added to the eligible voting population, thus decreasing the percentages. Nonetheless, voter tu...
Research has brought about an abundance of reasons why youth are becoming less engaged in the political process. Education, absence of political knowledge, the media and family influence, indifference to election campaigns, inadequate amount of change, and lack of motivation are all possible factors in influencing the youth voter turnout.
There are less people voting now than prior generations. Putnam states, “[T]he decline in voting turnout... is due to the replacement of an older generation that was relatively interested in public affairs by a younger generation that is relatively uninterested” (2000, p. 36). This is reflective of intercohort change as the younger generations’ disinterest in public affairs continues to worsen. Technology has also played a role in the decline of political participation. Parties have the tools for mass marketing, so there is no longer a need for door to door campaigning. Why campaign door to door when one can reach millions with a single robocall? Lastly, individual and group political participation has declined since the 1960s. Putnam notes that individual participation such as voting is declining at a much slower rate than group participation such as joining political organizations, many of which deserve the name “tertiary associations” (2000, p. 52). This tertiary organizational structure aims to strengthen numbers but leads to a lack of social capital for its members as there is no requirement to socialize with one
The United States presidential election of 2012 was the 57th presidential election. The election was held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. The Democratic political leader was the incumbent President Barack Obama, and his candidate was vice President Joe Biden. Throughout this election the proportion of eligible voters who cast ballots shows that the rate was lower than in the past two presidential elections. Voter turnout decreased from 62.3 percent of eligible citizens voting in 2008 to an estimated 57.5 in 2012. The above calculation was also below the 60.4 percent in 2004 election, however above the 54.2 percent turnout in the 2000 election. Despite a rise of over eight million voters within the fitted population, turnout dropped from 131 million voters in 2008 to an estimated 126 million voters in 2012. When all ballots were computed, some 93 million eligible voters didn’t vote. There must be some contributing factors to see why there's a decline in voters’ turnout.
Additionally, voter turnout today is the greatest puzzle among American voting behaviors. Similarly, Congress decided to propose and the states ratified the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. In turn, younger age males are less likely to vote in elections and this was the reason of reduced national turnout rates. Consequently, attitudes towards politics in general can also be a reason for the decline of voters. Identically, voters beliefs are that government choose to ignore citizens, that there are too many politicians, and that the campaigns are extremely long. Still, voter turnout will only increase if the government decides to do something to restore our fate in the political system. Moreover, voters feel a burden
Young adults (age 18-26) are much less likely to go to vote than older people are. In addition, most young people’s interest in service has not extended to include political service. Older people are much more likely to vote in elections than younger people are. (Hershey, 2015, p. 168) moreover, older people tend to vote more frequently and consistently than young
Green, Donald. The Effects of an Election Day Voter Mobilization Campaign Targeting Young Voters. Yale University, 2004. Web. .
Young people are an indicator for the future of democracy, and social change occurs when young people assume their civic duties and replace the older group as voters and leaders (Syvertsen et al 589). Although youth may support human rights and social justice ideals in principle, they usually do not engage in any tangible effort to affect social change (Ry...
“Not Turning Out” published by The Economist on February 4th, 2017 covers the lack of enthusiasm concerning voting among millennial voters while providing possible explanations for why younger people are less likely to vote. Consistently across several nations less than half of eligible millennials voted, demonstrating that the problem is widespread and not specific to any region. Lower voter turnout makes elections less legitimate since the voting population becomes less representative of the overall population. However, millennials are politically active, even if they may not vote.
The first support Kamenetz argues is, the 2008 presidential campaign brought in the most voters under the age of 29 in history. If the voting age would be decreased, there would be more voters under the young adult category. There would be an increase of voters, including those under the age of eighteen.
The term – nation building or national development, is usually used to refer to a constructive process of engaging all citizens in building social cohesion, economic prosperity and political stability in a nation in an inclusive and democratic way. Going by the definition, it is seen that all citizens are to be involved in building or developing a nation. Thus, the involvement of youth in national development is a must. In fact, youths play one of the most important roles in nation building.