The Youth Voice and the Youth Vote: Social Media in the 2024 Election
“Make no mistake, this is a different youth electorate than in 2020 and 2022, and young voters are motivated by different things. Economic issues are top of mind, housing is a major concern—and the gap between young men’s and young women’s political preferences is pronounced.”
-John Della Volpe, polling director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School
“I’m not really a Democrat or a Republican, but I don’t like rhetoric.”
-Sir Mix-a-Lot
The Youth Vote by Numbers
Harvard’s survey in March indicated that of 18-to-29-year-olds nationwide, approximately half would “definitely be voting” in 2024’s presidential election. For the first time in history, the majority of the electorate will be composed of millennials and generations younger. And, while fears of low voter turnout are unabiding, the 2020 election saw higher youth participation (in absolute numbers) than in any election except 1992 and 1972.
Moreover, the 2020 election was marked by diversity, with young women of color outpacing young white women and youth overall in nearly every metric of civic engagement and efficacy. Their dispositive participation was in spite (or perhaps because) of the disproportionate challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic wrought on America’s communities of color.
Based on sheer numbers, the 2024 election has a strong potential to bring the largest youth vote the United States has ever reckoned with. What issues matter most to this ideologically and demographically diverse group of young voters? And, exposed to media platforms unlike anything we’ve ever experienced before, how exactly are we influenced to understand those issues?
Teens Under the Influence
According to Pew in 2019, over 40% of Americans aged 18-29 receive the majority of their news from social media, exceeding all other age categories combined. This drastic shift in media consumption has been appraised by some as democratizing; while traditional media promotes a bifurcated world of Fox versus CNN, social media’s worldview presents news in many fragments. Users are forced to encounter different perspectives, and partisanship and loyalty can be deconstructed in favor of ideological nuance.
An alternate perspective emphasizes the dangers of the social media “echo chamber” as a result of hyper-personalized feeds on X, Instagram, Facebook, and Tiktok. In recent years, academic researchers have additionally found evidence supporting the “amplification of the right” thesis, which argues that certain structural conditions of algorithms bias right-leaning content over left-leaning counterparts.
The left has relied disproportionately on “hashtag activism”, which mobilizes individuals under tags like #BlackLivesMatter or #MeToo. Conversely, the rightwing media ecosystem is defined in large part by political groups and organizations, many of whom receive funding from wealthy donors. In many ways, this ideological split on social media parallels that of legacy media; members of the left are more likely to look to a wide range of sources, less likely to believe misinformation, and more reliant on fact-checking. But, unlike legacy media, neither the right or left confines itself to a platform solely for the right or left. This reality leaves the young voters of today poised for interaction with their ideological opponents—which might promote either mutual understanding or polarization.
Influenced by What and Whom?
Immigration, foreign policy, and environmental issues stand today as some of the most divisive topics on partisan lines. However, in Harvard’s study of young voters, each of these topics trailed far behind concerns about the economy, which was the first priority for about a third of all respondents.
Because social media relies on an “attention economy,” it has been theorized to exaggerate the importance of controversial or identity-based topics. Foreseeably, this could distort social media representation of the youth’s economic concerns as opposed to their interest in flashier, more hot-button issues.
On the other hand, political analysts such as Thomas Frank have written about increasing polarization driven by a focus on these highly controversial issues. The left, Frank argues, has shifted into a movement of “scolding” identity politics, thereby missing a piece that has been critical to U.S. elections since the country’s inception—economics. By valuing identity-based issues over economic ones, the left undervalues how its core beliefs appeal to the working class, thereby sending more and more voters to find solace with the far-right. Does Frank draw on an illusory polarization of the left’s priorities, based on how it is represented in our new form of media?
With election season quickly approaching, politicians are scrambling to understand how the pervasive use of social media is interwoven with the true opinions which dictate the youth vote. Is social media truly reflective of young voters’ priorities, or does it have a distortionary effect on the presentation of our interests? And, once in the polling booth, what ideas (and which representations of them) will influence how we cast our ballots?
To be discussed…
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