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Generational Differences in Online Political Engagement

I have been thinking about the generational differences in the use of the internet for political expression. I want to share my basic idea and hopefully you will share your thoughts about the subject.

We know that despite the stereotype, most political bloggers and active members of blogging communities like Daily Kos tend to be older, with Millennials not having a huge presence.

I believe that younger voters express themselves politically online using social networks as opposed to blogging. Their involvement and sharing has more of a retail peer-to-peer feel to it as opposed to blogging, a more wholesale form of expression.

One of the things we know from life is that a person has a much better opportunity to find like-minded people to discuss things with when they are in high school or college. There are a lot of people from the same generation concentrated in one place. Younger voters don't have to look very far to find friends to talk to about politics in real life, and they tend to engage online by sharing with those people through social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

Older voters tend to have a harder time finding such people in real life. Many spend the majority of their time with a small group of coworkers, and a lot of employers don't encourage political discussion. These people who are passionate about politics look for an outlet for them to express themselves and find a community. They find this outlet in blogging communities like DailyKos. For the most part they have never met the people they end up discussing politics with in real life, at least until they attend some kind of meetup like Netroots Nation.

When I first started blogging about youth politics I wondered why there weren't more comments and why there weren't many young people blogging relative to those who are older, especially since our generation is supposed to be savvy digital natives.

My belief is that many young voters don't have to broadcast themselves online. They have people to talk to in person, and their online involvement is with those same people on social networks.

So those are my quick thoughts on this. What are yours? Help me flesh this idea out by sharing your ideas in the comments.

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October 6th, 2008 4:46pm
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Another note

Submitted by Kevin Bondelli on Mon, 2008-10-06 19:54.

What is interesting is that the comments about this post aren't being made on the post. The comments are coming in on Facebook, Friendfeed, and Twitter. Seems to verify my assumption.

Share?

Submitted by Michael Connery on Mon, 2008-10-06 20:42.

Could you share some of the comments for those of us not getting them?

I think there is another thing to consider here, and I wonder what your commenters are saying via Twitter and Facebook.

One of the big advantages of blogging is the ability to turn it into group action and to hash out things like message, rapid response, etc. among tens to thousands of people that are geographically dispersed. In that sens, because of the ability to have threaded conversations that go on at length, blogging is a more deliberative and cooperative medium than Twitter, wher eyou have 160 characters, and Social Networks, where you talk to far fewer people at once, adn in a manner not conducive to detailed discussion (I think, at least, in terms of how I use them).

I tend to wonder if blogging self-selects for more intensive forms of (intellectual?) engagement than do Twitter and Social Networks, and if Millennials who are engaged in politics more so than their peers will "age into" the blogosphere as their level of activity requires more deliberative forums.

Thoughts?

I agree - please post them

Submitted by Sarah Burris on Mon, 2008-10-06 21:17.

I agree - please post them on here or write a follow up.

I think that blogs aren't necessarily the thing for young people, I think they can be on their social networking sites, but outside blogs that don't have a "friend" thing attached doesn't have an overall appeal.

agree with your observation tho

Content creation vs. sharing

Submitted by Kevin Bondelli on Mon, 2008-10-06 21:37.

Mike, your comment gave me a thought. Blogging and writing comments definitely requires effort and the ability to produce your own content. On social networks I believe there is more of an emphasis on sharing other people's content rather than producing your own.

The comments I tend to get on social networks are very informal, very much like a text message. Blog comments tend to be longer and more formal.

The question of whether Millennials will age into the blogosphere is an interesting one. It remains to be seen what the effect of growing up with Facebook will have on their ability to stay connected with one another. For example, a few days ago a friend I grew up with in California that I knew back when I was in Preschool wrote on my Facebook wall about the election. I haven't seen him in person since I moved to Arizona 15 years ago, yet we are able to still stay connected as people who have had a real life relationship.

Before the rise of Facebook most people lost track of all but a few of the people they grew up with/went to school with/etc. Now there is a sustained connection between people. You remain connected ad infinitum unless someone closes their account or removes your connection.

I'm not sure how this will affect movement towards deliberative forums. Some Millennials I know blog, but they blog on their MySpace account with only their real-life friends as their audience. When we blog we are broadcasting to anyone that is interested.

We are also the oldest edge of the Millennial generation. It seems that those deeper in the generation are relying less on the broadcast medium.

Comments

Submitted by Kevin Bondelli on Mon, 2008-10-06 21:23.

Here are a couple of comments that came through other media.

its so funny you write this because just today i posted 3 bulletins on myspace about the election. one was about registering, one was actually a usa today article about the millenial gen and how they are expected to vote and why and one was just making fun of mccain. :) and i've been posting pretty steadily for the past few weeks, some informational, some making fun of palin... its just too easy. ;)

Makes sense. I think you need to mention FriendFeed/Twitter as they sit between social networks and blogging.

i think u hit it right on with the blog post about blogging/facebook posting etc. i agree with u 100 percent

One of the comments was from Facebook, one from Twitter, and one from Google Chat.

Calming Down

Submitted by blueflame on Mon, 2008-10-06 22:18.

I have to admit, after reading your post I feel much more comfortable with the fact that most young voters don't read or care much about political blogs. I used to have this mentality that Millennials need to just "wake up" and realize the incredible potential of political blogs, but now I see how other mediums can be a much better fit for political expression.

I'd also like to add that the vast majority of young voters (at least that I've come across) have never even heard of Twitter. For the purpose of looking at broad generational characteristics it's probably more important to look at facebook/myspace and other mainstream social networks.

Twitter

Submitted by Kevin Bondelli on Tue, 2008-10-07 04:14.

That's pretty much what I told the person who mentioned Twitter and Friendfeed. Twitter is just now starting to get noticed by the mainstream with its use by CNN, but it is still not at the adoption levels required for its inclusion. Friendfeed is still primarily used by early tech adopters.

College Students and Blogging

Submitted by Kevin Bondelli on Wed, 2008-10-08 00:41.

I was also thinking about the amount of work it takes to create and regularly write content for a blog. I think that a lot of college students get burned out on writing, since they are doing so much of it for classes. In a way blogging daily is like having an essay due every single day.

For most people that create a blog it takes a long time before anyone actually reads it. Building an audience is time-consuming and is a lot of work. On social networks they already have an audience that knows and trusts them.

Excellent post ...

Submitted by JonPincus on Wed, 2008-10-08 01:58.

I've been involved in a lot of social network activism, including hanging out a lot in the One Million Strong for Barack group on Facebook, and have observed a lot of the same things although hadn't put it together as well as you.

One of the things I've commented on repeatedly in posts like Reflections is the progressive blogosphere's huge lack of awareness of -- or appreciation for -- the possibilities of social network sites. This essentially winds up marginalizing anybody who prefers social network-style interaction ... younger voters in particular.

As an aside, in terms of "generational" issues, the dividing for "Generation Facebook" is somewhere around age 26-28, and there are also significant differences within that. A few years ago danah boyd organized a panel of local teenagers at Computers, Freedom, and Privacy who talked about their use of technology ... it was an eye-opening experience.

jon