#Polis2015: General Election among new media and discouraged young voters
Reports, notes, and further info from the series of conference Journalism & Elections
Politics
happens somewhere else. News, debates, manifestos, do not need anymore the
traditional medium to reach their audience’s houses.
The 2015
General Election candidates can get known by other means. Or they may slide
into indifference, as web forums would increasingly not care about politics. But
always through different ways from the TV.
News has
changed. Or it is better to say: the way
news is delivered has changed.
And the
relation between politicians and voters cannot be thought as in the past – even
in a comparison with the recent past 2010 General Election.
Technology is a revolution. Along with the difficulties in approaching young people,
tech innovations were one of the main points in question for Vote 2015!, the sixth Polis Journalism Conference.
The event, held on the 27th of March from
9:30 to 17:00, has seen the participation of broadcasters, campaigners, and
journalists’ trainers.
The event was practically divided into different
spaces, Sheikh Zayed, Wolfson, and Thai Theatre at the London School of
Economics, with three conferences on at the same time in each place.
I personally had the chance to attend only the
morning session, but interesting speeches and space to debate new ideas have
gone on.
2015: A Post-TV Election?
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| Adam Boulton Photo Credit: Cristiana Ferrauti |
“More
information is available. Therefore, broadcasters could not only deliver
information about political debates, but should collect the material, compare,
analyse, and bring the debate on.”
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| Adam Boulton Photo Credit: Cristiana Ferrauti |
How may
broadcasters attract more viewers?
According to a recent report by Childwise, children between 5 and 16 years
old spend on average more than 6 hours in front of the screen. The time is twice
the period surveyed in 1995, with the difference that when we talk about the screen we do not refer anymore only to
the TV’s one.
As a reply, Adam Boulton play one of
the last online campaign video by Tories, a cartoon where Miliband is a puppet in Alex Salmond’s hands.
The Labour, as far as the conservatives want them to be depicted, would not
really lead the country, but, instead, the Scottish National Party would “call
the tune.”
“These are just examples of new forms of campaigning. The format and its sharing across social media, also, try to speak to young voters.”
The
electorate is in a fractioned and disillusioned moon. The media risk to enter
into a vicious cycle of disillusion.
New tools and platforms: Twitter & The Guardian
When talking about radical changes in the way we
deliver the news, social media play an essential role.
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| Joanna Geary Photo Credit: Cristiana Ferrauti |
That is why Joanna Geary, The Guardian’s
digital development editor, train newsrooms to new digital practices, by using
the latest tools for research stories and discover the trends in their
audience.
Twitter comes first and foremost as an example.
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| Twitter's figures - in more than 140 characters |
Web-twitter tools:
Twittersearch - for news
gathering
TweetDeck
–
for monitoring and scheduled tweets.
The
aim is to make the news more eye-catching.
The same objective is in the list for the Data section of The Guardian.
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| Alberto Nardelli Photo Credit: Cristiana Ferrauti |
The
important questions to bear in mind when delivering statistics, surveys, or
other figures are: Why these numbers matters? How relevant are for people's
lives?
The
challenge for data journalism is to tell the stories behind numbers in a more compelling, relevant, insightful, original way.
“There are many ways to tell a story,”
Mr Nardelli continues.
Some
examples?
1)
Short compelling stories, which tell one or two bits of
information. A lot of data, but conveyed in simple visual approach.
2)
Insightfulness and analysis of those data. It is mainly
about the stories, and the people around the data. http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/datablog/2015/mar/27/asylum-applications-rich-countries-highest-since-1992
3) Attractive
graphs, data, figures.
For example, how to represent changes from the last election and how do they make polling interesting? “People may not be so interested in detailed polls, but they would look more at the potential combinations between results and policies,” says Alberto Nardelli. “Thus, the challenge: how to illustrate these combinations.”
For example, how to represent changes from the last election and how do they make polling interesting? “People may not be so interested in detailed polls, but they would look more at the potential combinations between results and policies,” says Alberto Nardelli. “Thus, the challenge: how to illustrate these combinations.”
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| Photo Credit: Cristiana Ferrauti |
Engaging Young People in Politics - Showcase
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| Photo Credit: Cristiana Ferrauti |
We do not want to repeat ourselves – as the
disinterest in politics has become a cliché - , but the problem becomes even
worse when looking – again – at the percentage for the 18-34 years old agegroup.
“We are trying to get politics into the concept of
Virility, like Buzzfeed style,” said Danny
Bartlett, founder of Hand Up Who’s
Bored.
.jpg) |
| Photo Credit: Cristiana Ferrauti |
“It is not a matter that youth do
not care about social issues, he said, but they do not believe or trust the system we live in.”
Shout Out UK covers alternative
movements, like Anonymous. These are
new forms of engagement.
“Alternative movements exist because
young people do not feel engage with the traditional politics. They attend,
instead, these other forms because they are angry.”
“Voting seem a very passive act, for
generations who look for a more active
participation. – said Georgia Gould,
Labour Councillor for Camden – Here come new, different, non-traditional form
of engagement with politics, like poetry, YouTube videos, blogging.”
Georgia – 24 years old - highlighted
also the fact that young people are often seen as a problem by the current
political narrative, instead of a potential for real change”
Nick
Phipps, editor for Sky News election
output, talked about the necessity of a new way to address the main issues the
youth cares about.
A digital platform. That’s the idea.
“One of the big surprises was to
discover how easy it was to integrate what was in the main political agenda,”
he said.
AskThe Leaders event - broadcast by Sky News and hosted by Facebook – was
probably one of the most interesting experience, as they managed to get the
leaders from the four major political parties answering to the questions by the
young voters.
Are we talking just about problems?
Conferences, further research on the web, and even the TV switched on - very few times, honestly, but it can still happen -, what arrive to a disillusioned/confused voter is a continuous talking about the "youth" problem - in addition to the financial, migrants', education, and-so-on problems politicians often talk about.
However, after a look at the Vote 2015!'s programme, a new and general debate around digital platforms rises.
The two "issues" are linked.
And I put the word "issues" between quotation marks as to remember the reader how double sides these matters can result.
Are they realistically a problem?
Or could they easily become a powerful #resource?
#vote and #share
#debate can help to figure it out.
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