Media, Millennials, and Politics by Novak Alison;

Author:Novak, Alison;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Through self-reflexivity, millennials state that they are disengaged, however their explanations at the root of this disengagement propose something very different. Instead, this act of self-reflexivity shows a generation that is involved through active disengagement. Importantly, the recognition of bias by different age groups remains an inconclusive and relatively unstudied area of research. While there are many studies exploring and advocating that millennials struggle to recognize bias in news reporting, there remains little research on other age groups.

Vidali’s work stands alone in its interpretation of millennial engagement as pluralistic and multifaceted.[43] Most of the scholarly work on the subject polarizes two extremes. Scholars adamantly find evidence to support models of total engagement and total disengagement, but rarely do they study the “space between the poles.”[44] To understand youth political activity, we must look beyond statistical findings on voter turnout and instead focus on the context of new forms of political engagement.[45] Researchers such as Huntley, Montgomery, and Winograd and Hais support that millennial participation (in whatever form it takes) looks, sounds, and acts differently than traditional measures of voter turnout and party affiliation. Political engagement in the Millennial Generation needs to be looked at contextually, not just statistically.[46] As in the case of the 2004 and 2006 elections, millennials may not have shown up in the national polls to support all candidates, but they did participate in other ways. Volunteerism, online campaigning, and local policy advocacy reached all-time highs since the millennials entered young adulthood.[47] These facets of political participation are often overshadowed by the perception of a decline of voting, however these forms may instead represent a new type of engagement, one which is still developing.

However, these total engagement findings are countered by researchers who suggest the lack of national political participation and voting are reflective of a critical decline in overall engagement. Mindich, Twenge, and Bauerlein propose that the millennials are totally politically disengaged.[48] There are a number of reasons proposed as the cause of this disengagement, such as lack of education, low levels of news consumption, and the desire to be different. This potentially results in a group that does not vote, not only because they are apathetic, but because they don’t see the point. As Mindich points out, when a group, like the millennials, do not watch the news, they do not know what to aim for politically.[49] It is not just the content that they miss, but the purpose for political engagement, such as protecting the First Amendment. Differently, Marchi’s findings suggest that media exposure also influences perceptions of civic engagement practices.[50] In her experiment, millennials who watch above average amounts of television and digital news were more likely to feel like civic participation efforts were effective.[51]

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