Increased efficacy leads to increased motivation and this is crucial to the success of local government’s efforts to engage with young people (Xenos and Moy, 2007). Svensson provides the best explanation of motivation using ‘expressive rationality’ or using politics to engage in identify development. He sees citizens as “motivated by a will to express, perform, maintain, create and recreate identities and their meanings” (Svensson, 2009). As actions in government are unlike actions in the market are indecisive, meaning that when you vote for a candidate or write a submission you cannot guarantee that outcome, engagement in politics is instead associated with expressing preference and fostering identity- something which is even more important to young people as they are often going through previous of drastic identity formation and change (Svensson, 2009). When engagement with local government is conceived in this light it becomes clear that focussing on encouraging youths’ to vote is not enough to foster their authentic engagement with local politics and when this focus on votes is undertaken at the expense of considering other forms of political engagement it could ultimately harm young people’s willingness to engage with local politics (which would also likely have a negative correlation with voting turnout). Instead any council’s use of new media should be concerned fostering more efficient and effective consultation, revealing how issues of local government are relevant to the lives of young people, and providing youths with the information necessary to be involved.
Ten Reasons Why Youth Say They Do Not Engage With Local Government:
10| Think their voice would not be heard
9 | Lack transportation
8 | Difficulty in balancing engagement with other time commitments
7 | Lack of parental support
6 | Activity is held at an inconvenient time
5 | Issue seems to big to tackle
4 | Issue on agenda is not interesting to youth
3 | No other youth are involved
2 | Believe that adults do not take youth seriously
1 | No one asked
(Synthesised from: Achor et al., 2001; Checkoway et al., 2005; Zeldin et al., 2000)
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