Dr James Dennis
Senior Lecturer in Political Communication and Journalism at the University of Portsmouth.
Email: james.dennis@port.ac.uk
Twitter: @jameswilldennis
https://www.jameswilldennis.com
UK Election 2024
Section 1: Democracy and representation
1. Public anxiety and the electoral process (Prof Barry Richards)
2. How Nigel Farage opened the door to No. 10 for Keir Starmer (Prof Pippa Norris)
3. The performance of the electoral system (Prof Alan Renwick)
4. Tory downfall is democracy rectifying its mistakes (Prof Stephen Barber)
5. Votes at 16 and decent citizenship education could create a politically aware generation (Dr Ben Kisby, Dr Lee Jerome)
6. “An election about us but not for us”: the lack of communication for young people during GE2024 (Dr James Dennis)
7. Election timing: masterstroke or risky gamble? (Prof Sarah Birch)
8. The dog that didn’t bark? Electoral integrity and administration from voter ID to postal votes (Prof Alistair Clark)
9. A political gamble? How licit and illicit betting permeated the campaign (Dr Matthew Wall)
10. Ethnic diversity in politics is the new normal in Britain (Prof Maria Sobolewska)
11. Bullshit and Lies on the campaign trail: do party campaigns reflect the post-truth age? (Prof Darren Lilleker)
12. Stoking the culture wars: the risks of a more hostile form of polarised politics (Dr Jen Birks)
While featuring in many critical policy debates, the 2024 UK general election alienated some younger citizens. The quote used in the title of this piece comes from my ongoing interviews with young people in England who experience inequality, exploring how they navigated political communication during the campaign. Those I have spoken to were surprised by how, in an election dominated by the cost of living, the state of the NHS, and immigration, youth issues could be so present in electoral discourse yet disconnected from their priorities.
Cast your mind back to the first week, when parties competed to establish the narrative of their overarching plans, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak launched a proposal to require 18-year-olds to participate in National Service. This flagship policy for the Conservative Party led 16-year-old Henry Hassell to ask Sunak why “he hates young people so much” in a viral video on TikTok. By week two, the party committed to scrapping “rip-off” university degrees to fund new apprenticeships. This rallying cry was endorsed on the front pages of the Daily Express and the Daily Mail. Both policies were deeply unpopular with young voters.
Beyond the governing party, Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform Party, told Good Morning Britain that “a growing number of young people do not subscribe to British values, in fact, despise British values”. Meanwhile, Sarah Vine, a columnist in The Mail on Sunday, stated that she wouldn’t trust a 16-year-old to “collect her dry cleaning”, let alone vote, in response to the Labour Party’s proposal to extend the voting age to 16. This policy was later described as an attempt to “rig future elections” on the front page of the Daily Mail. These examples demonstrate open hostility toward this generation. Rather than seeking to represent their concerns legitimately, youth issues were used to garner electoral support from older voters.
Interviewees were also opposed to the conflict frames used in electoral discourse, with one citing coverage on the climate crisis as an example where the substantive issue and its long-term impact was overlooked in favour of stories about “these terrible vigilante type people”. For instance, the decision of Just Stop Oil protestors to spray soluble paint on Stonehenge during the campaign was described by the then Home Secretary, James Cleverly, as a “reckless and idiotic assault on the fabric of our nation”. The response advocated on the front page of the Daily Express was to “just lock them up!”.
As an alternative, interviewees outlined a vision of the type of political reporting they wanted to see: information that takes the priorities of young people seriously, listens to and amplifies their perspectives, and gives awareness to topics that this population perceives to be minimised.
Unsurprisingly, young people looked elsewhere for such campaign news, with many turning to social media. Despite well-documented fears about the accuracy of information on Instagram and TikTok, the reality was somewhat less dystopian. Some of the most widely shared deepfakes on these platforms were funny rather than dangerous, with the National Service plan being adapted for the video game Fortnite and Keir Starmer blowing up Nigel Farage’s favourite pub on Minecraft. Instead, for my interviewees, social media offers access to stories and perspectives that are relatable to their lived experience, which they do not feel were covered by legacy news media or political parties during the campaign. This information comes from a variety of sources, including non-traditional actors, such as alternative media.
PoliticsJOE, the politics and current affairs section of youth-focused publisher JOE and one of the most recognisable news brands on social media in the UK, was mentioned in several interviews. During the election, they published a range of content, from long-form features on the scale of the food bank crisis, to a weekly round-up of the best memes on the election, to informative summaries of the manifestos weaved around humorous imagery. Crucially, this reporting is relatable to their young audience in the topics covered, but also in its form: PoliticsJOE reported on the election using the language and conventions that are representative of the communicative norms of this generation.
During the BBC Prime Ministerial Debate, Keir Starmer criticised the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, stating, “If you listened to people in the audience [and] across the country, you might not be so out of touch”. This feeling of not being heard was common in my interviews and represents a significant problem in British democracy. Young people who are passionate about social issues and their community are alienated by formal politics. If political elites care about the disengagement of this age group from mainstream political institutions and want to address the age gap in British politics, whereby young voters have stopped turning out to vote to the same degree as older citizens, they need to make meaningful attempts to integrate them into future elections.
PoliticsJOE screenshots: https://www.instagram.com/politicsjoe/
