A Changing Paradigm for a Politically Involved Citizenry
An Honours Research Thesis by Marcelo Vieta
Power point Presentation of GenX and the New Politics
"Thomas Jefferson once noted that there never has been, nor ever will be, a people who are at once both politically ignorant and free. If so, we can legitimately wonder what the future holds if Xers remain as uninformed as they are about government and public affairs."
-- Bennett & Rademacher, 1997
News is very important to a democratic society when one considers the news--especially television news--as the "conduit of basic images and information, facts and values to the general public...setting the political agenda, the issues, events, and people that become part of the public’s consciousness."
--David Taras, University of Calgary, 1990
Fact: Thirty percent of Canadian 18-34 year olds think the news is relevant. Compare this to 50% of 35-54 year olds and 66% of the 55+ generation.
--Angus Reid, 1995
Fact: In 1965, 67% of 18-34 year olds claimed to regularly read the newspaper. In 1990, 30% claimed to do so. In 1996, 19% did so.
-- Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press, 1965-1990;
Pew Research Center, 1996; RTNDF, 1996
Fact: In 1965, 52% of under 35s watched the evening news. In 1990, 41%. In 1996, 26%.
-- Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press, 1965-1990
The young are leading the shifts in the socio-political mind-set of the Canadian public. "These shifts do not just reflect a change in values...they are also accompanied by declining confidence in both governmental and non-governmental institutions and the emergence of nontraditional forms of political participation."
-- Neil Nevitte, University of Toronto, 1996
Executive Summary
Two alarming and parallel trends are affecting contemporary North
American society. On the one hand, traditional news media outlets--TV,
print, and radio news--are experiencing dwindling audiences. At
the same time, democracy is hemorrhaging under a cloud of growing
public discontent that is seeing a less informed public voting
less and seeming to care less. Consequently, Canadian and American
political systems look increasingly fatigued and unresponsive
to cynical and impatient citizens consistently avoiding the ballot-box
in frustration. Most alarming, this state of uncertainty is strongest
among the youngest voters, the new citizen.
In this study, I attempt to analyze the reasons behind these trends. In the course of my argument I hope to show that the emerging sense of "citizenship" among today’s young adults is not so much "apathetic" as a profound "restlessness" and "disenchantment" with democracy’s stagnant and lethargic old ways. Instead of feeling disempowered, however, the new citizen is reinventing the concept of civic involvement that is more locally focused, tangible, and, ultimately, empowering. This is the new politics, a socio-political values shift lead by the well-educated, young-adult citizen.
Purposes and Directions
This thesis explores the cultural matrix in which this new politics emerges. Specifically, the study examines how evidence of this political paradigm shift among the young is witnessed in declining news audience trends and decreasing young-voter turnout rates. I identify and examine these trends through analysis of quantitative data-sets and by conducting qualitative interviews of Vancouver, BC based young-adult citizens.
Explorations
With the task of unraveling these trends, the thesis follows four lines of inquiry:
First, I examine the phenomenon of Generation X. Specifically, I outline the growing understanding of the Gen X phenomenon, its members’ media-socialized outlook on life, and how conceiving of Gen Xers as a culture helps us understand certain fundamental differences from older citizens.
Secondly, I look at the current state of news media as a key player in our democratic system. Here, I investigate new ways of using news media and argue that a declining use of traditional news outlets as a source of political information is emerging in the US and in Canada. Although younger citizens increasingly use infotainment as forms of news sources--such as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and This Hour has 22 Minutes--this is not to be necessarily interpreted as Generation X’s neglect of civic duties, but a new way of garnering information.
Thirdly, I explore the young-adult citizen’s new ways of engaging in a politically active life by delving into different aspects of political participation. I first define how political knowledge is linked to political participation. I then examine how media use, political knowledge and political behaviour correlate, contrasting the political involvement of older generations with the young new citizen. I conclude that the more media one consumes the more politically knowledgeable one is and, in turn, the more likely one is to vote. Among Gen Xers, these relationships follow a similar direction but are greatly subdued. That is, the degree of media use does not correlate with Gen X voting patterns as much as it does with older generations.
Lastly, I look at the relationship between media use and political participation among different age groups (Matures, Boomers, and Gen Xers), discussing the diverse ways of using media to inform the citizen’s political perspectives. The new citizen’s unique strategies of gathering political information subsequently become compelling evidence for a new politics emerging in Canada: a politics that is focused at the local level and includes less abstract, more energizing causes such as volunteerism and celebrating diversity.
Conclusions
The findings of this thesis suggest that the young-adult new citizen is redefining civic responsibility and how social transformation takes place within the Canadian polity. Specifically, the new citizen is finding new sources of information for operating within this new politics, which include: the Internet, infotainment, advertising, peer groups, and the family, in addition to traditional news sources.
Implications
The implications of the new politics on our democratic system are fourfold: