From this we then looked on the internet for further explanations and found the very useful article quoted below.
Unfortunately, according to Ipsos MORI, 56 per cent of people in our age bracket, the 18-25s, weren’t excited; instead they were apathetic, failing to turn up on election day. James Kirkup wrote yesterday that young people don’t vote out of stupidity, but he couldn’t be further from the truth.
My friends who don’t plan on voting in five months’ time will do so because they don’t feel that the decisions made in Whitehall affect them. Older people are directly affected by the policy choices we hear about in the media; their mortgage repayments are dealt with by the banks, their children are examined in schools, and their dodgy hips are cared for in hospitals.
The policies that affect young people – student loans, renting rights, gateways into employment – aren’t discussed to nearly the same extent in the media, nor are they reflected in politicians’ priorities. If young people’s rights aren’t reflected in Whitehall, many won’t feel inclined to vote – and as the majority of us don’t vote, politicians focus all the more on keeping the older generations happy.
This vicious circle could be stopped if under-25s were encouraged to delve into current affairs, but there’s hardly any emphasis in schools on teaching teens how to engage with the political system. My friends and I only gathered to watch the election debates because our school openly persuaded us to get involved; not everybody is as lucky.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11346325/Young-people-dont-vote-because-politics-is-stupid-not-us.html
Thinking that perhaps informing younger people could be the way to do this we looked into an american news letter for the younger generation that is referenced in this article.
What makes the skimm different is the tone of voice of its short and to the point articles. The news letter is in the form of and email that you sign up to receive and the surprising premise they are written on is that these issues are relevant and interesting to young people, and it works. They are entertaining snippets that focus on current event (including the election).
http://www.theskimm.com/recent
We got thinking about creating something that paralleled the skimm for england but felt that what is was missing was interaction. A form of discussion or engagement that would really make the difference between apathetic and interested.
We had a look to see if any such thing existed but the closest we found is shown below and is the driest of political discussion forums with hideous design.
http://vote-2012.proboards.com/
WE then got thinking about the way discussions can be engaging for those that are listening if they include the right people. This brought us to podcasts and TV shows that made use of this and lead to the main idea that we want to develop further.
http://dave.uktv.co.uk/alan-davies-yet-untitled/article/alan-davies-yet-untitled-podcasts/
Jamie came up with the idea of a comedy show that discussed these issues. I made the addition that to make it extra relevant to our target age group we could purposely make the discussion between young and older comedians and the issues discussed suggested by the audience.
We thought that it could be a multi-platform endeavour that moved around the country for the live show, but also had podcasts and videos on the website that could be channeled through social media and youtube. We also thought that it should be possible to share individual jokes from a show on both twitter and facebook, so that interest can be gained without long winded essays of information. More than anything we wanted to foster conversation and thought throughout this process, so comments seemed the perfect way to start this.
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