Interesting article about how politicians will/should engage with our disconnected youth. written by Amina Taylor
I nearly spat out my morning coffee when I heard the words "urban", "gangster" and "hoodie" emerge from the lips of Conservative Party leader David Cameron. He might have chosen to live in the less well-heeled end of London's Notting Hill, but you can guarantee Cameron's only contact with these "urban gangster hoodie-wearers" is from the safe distance of his ministerial car. Those in the immediate vicinity of the place Cameron calls home are more likely to be armed with fantastic Pilates technique than anything that will have them appearing on Crimewatch. It is this lack of any real experience in the area of reaching out to those disaffected hoodie-wearing youths that rang hollow and false in my ears
Taylor adds
Cameron's attempts at pop politics can only end in tears. Voters will see the glaring inconsistency of trying to appeal to the needs of Middle England voters and those trendy young things he's attempting to get on side. This strategy, if you can call it that, simply does not work. We are all aware of the need of politicians to be more inclusive and show that they have got the common touch. But this works only if it is sincere. And wading into cultural waters in which they have no experience never looks sincere.That kind of cool cache is not what I want from the people I trust to lead me. What's next, members of Parliament engaging in 8 Mile-style rap battles instead of debates? I can just hear it now: "Your policies are whack," raps David Cameron. "Your Commons majority we're gonna jack/ Bring your mans dem/ Let's unite to sort out this global warming problem." If this is the next stage in the attempt to impress people like me, then I feel ever so slightly patronised and a little afraid. I could not care less if my prime minister knew which end of Snoop Dogg was up. I'll sort out my own entertainment - you do the politics.
But how do modern politicians engage Amina, thats what I would like to know?
In a previous post The young disengage with politics we pointed out that
it is important to be realistic about the obstacles facing young people in their search for knowledge about how society works; who governs them; what their rights are; and how they can make changes. Society entreats young people to ‘be good citizens’, but does not provide them with the tools to become so. At the very least, good citizens need to be informed and to communicate about matters of concern to them. In theory the web, with its encyclopedic store of information and opportunities for interactive chat and discourse, is a perfect space for the cultivation of civic knowledge and participation. It has the potential to nurture a more active form of citizenship where the new media become a locus for participation and a facilitator of a national conversation in which the represented learn to present themselves to one anotherand to their elected representatives.The context for this research is a conspicuous disengagement from politics by young people. 61% of 18-24 year-olds chose not to cast a vote in the 2001 general election, almost double the number for the electorate as a whole. 46% of 18-24 year-olds were of the view that voting in the 2001 election would not make much of a difference, compared with 34% of the electorate as a whole.
33% of 18-24 year-olds reported having no interest at all in media coverage of the election.
There is a strong correlation between young people’s lack of knowledge about politics and their disengagement from the democratic process. In a May 2001 poll for the Electoral Commission, MORI found that 70% of 18-24 year-olds considered that they knew little or hardly anything about how the Westminster Parliament works, compared with 56% of the electorate as a whole. The majority (59%) of those claiming little or no knowledge of how Parliament works did not vote; the vast majority (89%) of those who claimed to know a fair amount or a great deal about Parliament did cast their votes.
Not surprisingly, those who are most confused by civic and political issues are least likely to engage in civic or political life. They are not disengaged because of antipathy to the political system; nor should they be simplistically blamed as apathetic or indolent.
Its all very well to slap people down, thats easy – the tough call is to offer alternatives to what one might see as failed attempts to re-engage key communities of UK VOTERS
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