| Communications and Development |  |
Published by Communications and Development
Three University of Canterbury political science students have been awarded scholarships from the New Zealand Electoral Commission to find out what makes young Kiwi voters tick.
Canterbury scooped three out of the five 2008 Wallace Scholarships with Masters students Holly Donald, Thomas Lee and Alexandra (Alex) Marett awarded $900 each to assist their research on topical electoral matters. The trio are all supervised by Dr Alex Tan (Political Science and Communication).
Holly's thesis seeks to understand the motivations of young “principled” non-voters in New Zealand.
“I'm specifically looking at young non-voters (under 30s) who have really high levels of efficacy and like to participate – like protesting or boycotting – but they don't feel voting is right for them,” said Holly. “I am testing whether the post-materialist theory can explain their attitudes and behaviour.”
Holly plans to conduct interviews with a small group of principled non-voters to find out “why they do what they do and what they do instead of voting” and said she hopes to figure out whether these people might be encouraged to vote and, if so, how.
Principled non-voters were not considered in most research, Holly said.
“People just assume if you're not voting you don't care but what's interesting is there are people who do care but don't vote for various reasons.”
Thomas' project looks at citizenship education with a focus on young migrants in New Zealand, who Thomas said were one of the groups with the lowest election turnout.
“One way to solve this problem is through education. At the moment there is no citizenship education in the curriculum. So to encourage them to vote and increase their participation and political awareness, I'm looking at whether introducing citizenship education into the curriculum would work or not.”
Thomas will be surveying students of eligible voting age from a cross-section of Christchurch high schools – as well as speaking with teachers and principals – looking at their attitudes and political knowledge and assessing their level of participation.
“We want to find out why young voters aren't voting. My suggestion is that they don't really understand the implications of it,” said Thomas.
The role of internet-based media participation in the 2008 general election is the topic for Alex's Masters research.
“I'll be looking at how the Internet could potentially influence voter behaviour in the upcoming general election and looking at the growth of Web 2.0 technology like YouTube and Facebook and how it will play a huge role in this election.
“It was only in the last election that a lot of this technology came out and now it is changing a lot of the post-modern campaigning on the Internet,” said Alex, using Hillary Clinton's campaign announcement on YouTube and John Key's 4000-plus supporters on his Facebook site as examples of the new online phenomenon.
“I'm looking at it all and I'm asking how can it potentially influence voting behaviour? I think you've got to look at television and how it was once proclaimed new media and heralded for democracy and then look at the shift to the Internet and the new platform it's providing.”
Alex will use two focus groups – one looking at television election coverage and the other concentrating on the elections online – and compare how each group finds its information and gauge the participants' responses on issues to establish if there are any differences between the groups.
“I want to know whether being able to blog and post comments and all that kind of stuff is encouraging people to participate more. I'm examining how the internet is a new form of participation that could reinvigorate a lot of Gen Y and get them voting in higher numbers,” Alex said.
The Wallace Scholarships are named for Sir John Wallace, the first president of the Electoral Commission. They are awarded to students whose research will add to ongoing debate, or that the commission can use in designing its education and information programme, suggesting policy change, and helping raise public awareness of issues.
For further information please contact:
Maria De Cort
Communications Officer
University of Canterbury
Tel: +64 3 364 2072
Fax: +64 3 364 2679
maria.decort@canterbury.ac.nz