研究ノート

Political Participation of the Young
Generation in the Age of Social Media― The Brexit Case ―Mari Nagasue

I. Introduction
23 June, 2016, is the date many citizens of the United Kingdom will not soon
forget due to a great impact they had experienced regardless of their politicalpreferences. The United Kingdom European Union Membership Referendum,
also known as the EU Referendum or Brexit Referendum, took place in the
United Kingdom and Gibraltar, to ask its electoral citizens whether the UK
should continue or withdraw its membership from the European Union, under
the provisions of the European Union Referendum Act 2015 and the Political
Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
According to the Electoral Commission in the UK, which provides official
statistics, the national total of electorate
was 46,500,001, in which 17,410,742 votes
were casted to exit the European Union

2016 EU Referendum
Rejected
Ballots,
0.08%

while 16,141,241 votes were to remain in
the status quo, with 2 5, 3 59 rejectedballots. (Electoral Commission, 2016) The

Leave,
51.89%

Remain,48.11%

result was a win for the Brexit voters(51.89%) over Remainers (48.11%), with avoter turnout of 72 . 21%. Despite theprediction before the referendum thatthe majority would vote for the UK torema i n i n t he Eu ropea n Un ion , t heresult of the 2016 EU Referendum was a
victory by a slight margin for thosedemanding an exit from a long standing

Fig.1

 esult of the 2016 EU
R
Referendum

Source:“Results and turnout at the EU
referendum.”The Electoral Commission.
https://www.electoralcommission.org.
u k /w h o - w e - a r e - a n d - w h a t - w e - d o /e l e c t i o n s - a n d - r e f e r e n d u m s /p a s t e l e c t i o n s - a n d - r e f e r e n d u m s /e u referendum /results -a nd-turnout- eureferendum

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union to reinstate the independent United Kingdom.
The Brexit Referendum was an interesting case in various dimensions. The
future of the United Kingdom was decided by a direct electoral participation,and it ref lected a vast discrepancy in political preferences for different
generations. Plus, the generational differences exposed dissimilar forms ofpolitical engagement, both before and after the referendum. The use of theInternet and the social media in political campaigning amplified, and the impact
this may have on influencing the voter conversion became a stimulating topic ofresearch for many scholars. Furthermore, the Brexit Referendum displayed how
the young generation participates and deals with political matters and thefuture of their country in the age of social media use.

II. Social Media in Political Campaigning
S ocia l media a nd t he I nternet have tra nsformed t he way we ha ndle
communication considerably, and the ways in which we connect through those
platforms have brought a radical change in how we access, collect, spread,share, and engage with information. As the Internet technologies advanced andaffordable portable devices became more available, the social media has grown
to be a major source of everyday information. Politics is no exception, and theuse of the social media brought a new means and variations of communicationand political participation. The advantage of social media use in politics is thatpoliticians, political parties and organizations are capable of reaching out to thepeople directly in their own words, instead of getting mediated by journalists orpress organizations in the traditional forms of media. Though social media has
also been regarded as a channel for deliberately, carelessly, or mistakenly
delivering misinformation, or so-called “fake news,” the number of users does
not seem to diminish.
Many researchers have turned to follow the active use of the Internet andt he socia l media duri ng t he electora l ca mpa ig ns to establish a causa lrelationship between political participation of the youth and their activities inthe digital arena. Due to its diffusive nature, the influence of social media on
politics has been the target of analyses, especially immediately before, during,
and after major elections and referenda. EU Referendum was no exception. The
role of social media in terms of persuading political preferences, manipulating
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Political Participation of the Young Generation in the Age of Social Mediapublic images, and its contribution to motivating formal political participation
have been questioned. Specifically with the younger generation, the impact thatthe social media has on their political decision making process has been thesubject of query, since they are the heaviest users of the Internet and the social
media in the United Kingdom.
Political campaigns using the digital network had been present in the United
Kingdom since the general election of 1997, but have become very active since
the election for the House of Representatives in 2010. It became more prominentthat the use of the Internet had intensified, and especially the use of social
media of popular platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram saw anupsurge. (Sato, 2013) Since then, numerous researches have been examining therole of social media during the political campaigning period, to analyze theirimpact on the voters, and whether it was a powerful tool to convince andmobilize the users both for and against Brexit. Additionally, considering that thesocial media is increasingly becoming an important source for information, someresearches have been conducted with an attempt to help explain the politicalbehaviors in the digital sphere which possibly increased the formal politicalparticipation of the young people. It has been reported that of the six mostpopular social media platforms, Facebook is most likely the largest, and UK
alone has approximately 42 million users, followed by YouTube, LinkedIn,
Twitter, and Instagram with 35.6 million, 21 million, 16 million, 14 million active
users in the UK respectively. (LSE, 2017)

III. Political Participation
Political participation is relevant for any political system, but it is an essential
feature of democracy. Participation in democratic decision making provides thecitizens an opportunity to disclose their interests, preferences, and concerns,
and the results reflect the will of the citizenry. Hence, public interest can berecognized through the processes of utterance, information, and deliberation,and transformed into collective decisions, which are deemed to be legitimate.
(Dalton, 2007) It is understood that more participation there is in decisions,more democratic the outcome, and there is little democracy if few were to takepart in decision making. Therefore, the degree of political participation is very
important, because it is a criterion for assessing the quality of democracy, and it
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研究ノートis vital for democracy that all participants are actively involved in decision
making processes.
In the recent years, trends show that people are increasingly abstain fromparticipating in electoral activities. A general low voter turnout has been seenin parliamentary, national and other elections, and citizens are increasingly
disconnected from formal political engagements and democratic institutions.
The voter turnout rates among the youngest generation have been dramaticallylower than their older counterparts, and the youth political participation in
general are in rapider decline compared to the older contemporaries. The
younger generation feel more disinterest and alienation from the politicalprocess, however, this does not suggest that the youth are disengaged from all
forms of political activities. (Henn, 2012)
Postnote by the House of Parliament classifies political participation into two
categories; formal and informal. Formal participation in official assemblies andprocesses refers to the traditional activities of political engagement, such as
voting for representatives in elections, casting ballots in referenda, becoming amember of pol it ica l pa r t ies , a nd at tend i ng publ ic meet i ng s . I n for ma lparticipation means other forms of partaking outside of political institutions,such as joining demonstrations, protests, or strikes, purchasing or boycotting
products for political reasons, signing an online petition, and any other politicalactivities taking place in the private sphere. (House of Parliament, 2015)
Young people in general tend to have a low level of formal participation,
however, they are more eager to engage in informal participation, especially forsingle issue causes. They are more likely to dista nce themselves frominstitutionalized forms of political engagement, and react to social issues
through non-conventional method of gathering. Henn and Foard argues that inGreat Britain, the access to new media and technologies facilitate youth
participation in informal political engagement, and the digital sphere provides a
new media culture, which influences the political identity formation of the young
people who are moving away from the traditional channels for expressing theirpolitical views. (Henn, 2012)

IV. The Generation of“Digital Natives”
The younger generation of voters of the EU Referendum is considered to be
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Political Participation of the Young Generation in the Age of Social Mediathe first generation of Digital-Natives. Marc Prensky was the first to introduce
the word, “Digital Natives,” and he explains that the Digital Natives are thegeneration who were born into the environment where digital technologies, suchas t he I nter net , computers , v ideo ga mes , a nd mobile dev ices , such as
smartphones and tablets, have already been widespread, adopted, and integrated
into their lives from day one. (Prensky, 2001) The exposure to digital technology
from early days is believed to provide the Digital Natives a greater familiarity
and advantage in the digital sphere, and they have a greater level of comfort inusing such technologies.
As oppose to the Digital Natives, those who were born before the digital era
and adopted the use of the new digital technologies later in their lives arereferred to as the “Digital Immigrants.” (Ibid.) According to Prensky, thefundamental difference between the Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants isthat although most of the users of digital technology speak the same “language,”
Digital Natives are the native speakers of the digital language, as opposed to
the Digital Immigrants who have learned the same language as a foreign
language. This fundamental difference is similar to what has been apparent in
the learning of a linguistically foreign language. To the Digital Natives, it istheir natural mother tongue which they had acquired without any conscious
effort. However, to the Digital Immigrants, it is an adapted language, and thelevels of comprehension vary, depending on the individuals. Many of the Digital
Immigrants have accomplished to familiarize themselves with the newtechnology and become accustomed to incorporating those technologies in their
daily lives, some are as good as Digital Natives, but they always maintain theexperience of their lives before the digital age and make recollections to thepast. Hence, the Digital Immigrants are inclined to make digital contents nottheir primary source of information but to rely on the traditional media, such as
printed newspapers, magazines, television, and radio. On the other hand, theDigital Natives generally acknowledge that the Internet is their main source of
information, have higher levels of comfort in using such media, and feel lessobjection in making digital contents to be their primary news provider. (Ibid.)
With Prensky’s conceptualization of Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, anddig ita l la ng uage (which refers to the knowledge a nd the use of dig ita ltechnology) in mind, we can have a better understanding of correlations
between the increase of Internet use and socio-demographic characteristics as
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研究ノートseen in the data produced by the Office for National Statistics in the UK for theInternet usage in 2017. In the report, “Internet users in the UK: 2017,” the Officefor National Statistics states that Internet usage amongst adults in the UK is ashigh as 89%, which has seen an increase by one point compared to the previous
year. Furthermore, 99% of the adults of ages 16 to 24 and 25 to 34 werereported to be the recent users of the Internet, and albeit the internet use
among women of ages 75 and above had trebled since 2 011, the overall
percentage of the oldest age group (ages 75 and above) is at 41%.

V. Youth Political Attitudes and Changing Political Participation
Younger generation in the United Kingdom, just as their counterparts in theUSA, Australia, and in Europe, has been characterized as being disengaged
from traditional forms of political participation for a couple of decades. (Collin,2015) Recent decrease in youth electoral participation has been generating
anxiety that the British young citizens are becoming gradually apathetic anddisengaged from political processes and democratic values. Existing researches
insinuate that the contemporary young people in general feel alienation anddissatisfaction in the political processes, have relatively lower amount of politicalknowledge in comparison to the older generations, maintain less interest inpolitical parties and organizations, and lack of attentiveness and commitment
towards political engagements. (Henn, 2011) However, younger generation’s
reluctance in traditional political engagement does not equate to their lack ofpolitical interest or participation.
S ocia l med ia a nd t he new tech nolog ies prov ide a new a rena for t heparticipation in different political activities other than formal politicalengagement. Political identities and forms of expression of the younger
generation have been alienated from the traditional means and transferred to
the new culture produced by the new digital media. Through the new media,
young people’s political identity are influenced by blogs, websites, and social
media, and the new participatory technologies allow them to actively express
their political opinion by signing online petitions, taking part in single issue
online groups, and producing digital media clips to post on YouTube and alike.
(Henn, 2011)
Disengagement from electoral participation of youth may be produced by a160

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Political Participation of the Young Generation in the Age of Social Medialack of con f idence in u ndersta nding Brit ish polit ics a nd k nowledge ofgovernment, as well as a distrust in political parties and politicians at theindividual level. Although citizenship classes have been offered, more than halfof the recipients felt that their awareness and comprehension had not been
increased. (Ibid.) Additionally, young people in particular do not trust theg ove r n me nt or t h e p o l it i c i a n s b e c a u s e of s c a nd a l s , n eg at ive me d i arepresentations, and unrealistic expectations standards of behavior in public life.
(House of Parliament, 2015) With such low political efficacy and a low level oftrust, young people feel that they cannot influence any political processes, andthey are not confident enough to participate in formal decision-making
procedures.
Regardless of their low political efficacy, about half of British youth population
believe and have confidence and attachment in the democratic process. Henn
and Foard discovered that close to 50% of the British young generation
acknowledge that they are satisfied with the way democracy works, yet morethan half of them expressed that the elections provide opportunities to express
political opinions but nothing gets changed. This implies that young people are
not apathetic to politics, however, they are pessimistic observers of the electoral
process. (Ibid.)
Evidence collected from many previous researches suggest that young
population in the United Kingdom is not politically apathetic but interested inpolitical affairs, especially through civic orientation and informal politicalparticipation. Ongoing example of this are the continuing Anti-Brexit marches,such as March for Europe, Unite for Europe, People’s Vote March, Put It To
The People March, and other local Stop Brexit marches, held in London andthroughout the United Kingdom, aiming for a chance for the second referendum.
It has been reported that hundred thousands of protesters took part in thosemarches, and the organization for such walks was made possible, facilitated,and expedited by the use of webpages and social media. In this sense, Internet
and social media influence and participation engaging in informal politics have acorrelation since the they promote political mobilization.

VI. Brexit and The Young Voters
Immediately after the referendum results revealed, numerous young voters
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研究ノート

exposed a wide range of emotions towards Brexit, composed of a mixture ofpanic, sorrow, disappointment, anxiety, anger, fear, underrepresentation,
deprivation, betrayal, and other negative sentiments, as they were commonly
expressed in interviews, surveys, videos, and other forms of media, which madetheir dissatisfaction very apparent and public. Some even blamed the older
generation for robbing them of their future. (BBC, 2016; Cresci, 2016; Joyce,2016) Despite their expression of deep disappointment, what triggered acontroversy was the low voter turnout of the younger generation (ages 18-34),
which was initially reported to be around 36%. (Dunford, 2016; Kelly, 2016; Sky
Data 2016) It is a well-known trend that the younger generations in liberal
democracies tend to engage far less than the older generations in conventional
political participation (Collin, 2015), however, critics began to speculate if more
voters of the young generation casted their ballots at the referendum, they
could have overturned the result in favor of Remain.
Whilst the young generation was criticized and blamed for political apathy
and irresponsibility, Professor Michael Bruter and Dr. Sarah Harrison of the
London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) presented reversing
findings. It has been very apparent from previous data that young people havethe tendency to vote considerably less than older generations. (Bruter, 2016;
Henn, 2011) However, the percentage originally circulated by Sky Data via
Twitter was based on the survey that was collected after the 2015 generalelection. Moreover, the data was based on the calculations of those voters who

EU Referendum Voter Turnout by Age(Originally reported by Sky Data)

Age Group

83%
81%

65 and over
55‐64
45‐54
35‐44
25‐34
18‐24

75%
72%
58%
36%
0%

Fig. 2

20%

40%
60%
Voter Turnout

80%

100%

Voter Turnout at the EU Referendum by Age Groups

Source: Sky Data Official Twitter Account.“% who got through our final #EUref poll turnout
filter by age group:” https://twitter.com/skydata/status/746700869656256512

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Political Participation of the Young Generation in the Age of Social Media

claimed that they never miss a chance to take part in elections. Hence,
according to Bruter and Harrison, 36% voter turnout for the young generation
was an outdated projection and not an accurate reflection of the 2016 EU
referendum. The 36% suggested a probability of how much voter turnout there
might have been if the young people behaved in the way they typically do on
the very day of the EU referendum. Same was applicable to all age groups
which were presented in the original estimates of Sky Data, and the probability
indicated only the likelihood of the voter turnout based on the 2015 generalelection.
The ECREP electoral psychology initiative at the LSE and Opinium worked
in a collaboration in order to acquire a better estimate of the youth participationin the 2016 Referendum. From one panel and one ad hoc studies of 3,008 and
2,008 respondents respectively, their findings evoked a differing result, whichsuggested 70% and 64% voter turnout for ages 18 to 24, and 67% and 65% for
25 to 39 year olds. (Bruter, 2016) Although these numbers are approximations, it
is clear that the voter turnout for the young generation seems to have beenmuch higher than originally predicted, only slightly lower than the national
average.
Compared to the previous low voter turnout at the general elections one year
ago, the young generation at the EU Referendum demonstrated a higher level ofelectoral participation of approximately 64%, which is assumed to be about

EU Referendum Voter Turnout by Age(Based on data by ECREP and Opinium)

Age Group90%

65 and above
74%

55‐64
40‐54

66%

25‐39

65%

18‐24

64%
0%

Fig. 320%

40%
Voter Turnout

60%

80%

100%

 oter Turnout at the EU Referendum, based on data provided by ECREP andV
Opinium.

Source:“EU referendum: breaking indifference. How age affected voting.”LSE. http://www.lse.
ac.uk/about-lse/connect/connect-2017/eu-referendum-breaking-indifference.

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研究ノートdouble the original estimate. (Yeung, 2016) What has made the change in only
one year? What was the key factor to mobilize the young people for thereferendum? Was this increase caused by more use of the Internet and thesocial media in political campaigning? In order to understand the motivation inpolitical mobilization of the young generation, we will need to investigate where
their political attitudes and values come from, what factors shape or alter them,and assess the influence of those factors and values on their political behavior.

VII. B rexit: Statistical Analysis of Social Media and Political
Preference
Max Hänska and Stefan Bauchowitz analyzed 7.5 million Tweets in the EU
Referendum campaign in order to study the influence of social media on politics.
According to Hänska and Bauchowitz’s research, social media has become thesecond most important online news source after the exclusive news websites,
and around 43% of those who pick up news online use social media. For the
younger generation of ages 16 to 24, 61% of them receive news online throughsocial media, and 16% amongst them depend on the social media as their
exclusive news source. However, social media does not only serve as a news
deliverer, but they also provide opportunities for the users to post, repost, share,
and comment on the news topics. Moreover, the social media allows directcommunication between the users and politicians or journalists, and they canconnect unobstructedly with each other. Reciprocally, politicians, politicalparties, journalists, and news organizations use this advantage of social media
to directly engage with their constituency.
Twitter is particularly popular for sharing updates, especially when the topic
is current, hence many politicians are using this platform to dispatch their latest
messages or “Tweets.” In fact, 87% of the members of the UK Parliament own
Twitter accounts, and since it does not require any mediation like in the
traditional media, it has become one of the powerful channels for them to reachthe audience directly. (Hänska and Bauchowitz, 2017) Not only with Twitter but
also in most popular social media platforms, users are free to follow theaccounts of their choice, and tailor their source of information to their tastes.
Furthermore, the integrated algorithm mechanism amplifies the users’
preferences by automatically calculating and feeding the contents which are
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Political Participation of the Young Generation in the Age of Social Media

similar to what the users had chosen manually, optimizing the social feeds withthe contents which the users presumably find pleasant and agreeable.
In the month prior to the EU Referendum, Hänska and Bauchowitz had
examined over 7.5 million Tweets to investigate the four key possibilities; 1) a
relationship between the actual voting preference and Twitter activity, 2) typesof shared information on Twitter, 3) whether the users were circumscribed totheir own echo chambers which constantly displayed the contents that theusers felt congenial, and 4) if the Brexiters and Remainers got directly involved
with each other. In their findings, Brexiters outnumbered the Remainers intheir account numbers as well as the number of Tweets by the ratio of 1.75 to2.3. (Ibid.) Additionally, those Brexiters who were active Twitters had a hightendency to vote for Leave, hence the voting preference was correlated toactivities on Twitter. However, Hänska and Bauchowitz make a remark that
this correlation cannot predict the outcome of the referendum for the margin of
the Brexiters overwhelming the Remainers was much larger on Twitter thanthe cleavage displayed by the actual referendum votes. Moreover, Brexiters
displayed less openness and higher homophily on Twitter, which indicates acharacteristic of an echo-chamber. On the other hand, Remain voters presented
more versatility in their activities by engaging in communication not only with
their cohorts but also Brexiters. In conclusion, Hänska and Bauchowitz notedthat the Brexiters on Twitter were highly enthusiastic and much more cause
oriented compared to the Remainers.
In their extensive study, Michael Bossetta, Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, andHans-Jörg Trenz followed the comments of close to two million Facebook users
who were either receiving political news or involved in referendum campaign
posts. Their aim was to investigate whether there is a relationship between theusers’ subscription to political news by the mainstream media on Facebook,their participation in partisan campaign postings, and divergence in theiropinion concerning EU membership. Initial stages of the study anticipated that1) political interests to have an effect on the levels of political participation on
online discussions, 2) exposure to the mainstream political news is less effective
than online participation at the campaign sites, and 3) divergence in opinion is
toughened by active campaign page users who tend to select more opinionatedmedia.
Over 18 months of analysis, Bossetta et al note that a positive relationship
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研究ノートbetween being engaged with mainstream political news and active commenting
on referendum campaign posts can be identified only for cases of cross-posters,
but not the entire sample population. Additionally, the study investigated if theonline political posting activity, cross-posting in particular, signifies behavioral
patterns unique to political polarization. Their findings suggest that although
there is an indication that mobilization by the campaign pages on Facebook
result in fortification of political preferences, Leave campaigners wereinconsistent and crossed into the Remainers’ ideological online territory
recurrently and make intensive comments on the pro-EU main stream media,
such as The Guardian. Additionally, the study notes that “the (posting) activities
that we do find point to the classic patterns of opposition mobilization against
the status-quo.” (Bossetta, 2017) In the case of EU referendum, status-quo was
the membership in the European Union, and the Leave voters were challengers
to the defenders of the status-quo, and extra motivation to reach the undecided
voters lead to more intensity for the Leave voters, as seen in many election
cases where the incumbents are faced by challengers. As for the Remain voters,
their win was thought to be assuring that campaigning did not seem tointensify.
Vyacheslav Polonski at the Oxford Internet Institute had conducted a similar
study. As a part of the EU Referendum Analysis, a large-scale social media data
analysis was conducted, and akin to the other researches, Leave supporters hadstronger, expressive messages, and had more efficient use of the social media.
(Polonski, 2016) Their data collection of over 18,000 users and 30,000 posts on
Instagram showed that there were double the number of Brexiters compared toRemainers, and the Remain supporters were five times less active than the proBrexit users. Similarly on Twitter, the ratio of Brexiters to Remainers wasreported to be 7 to 1, and three most popular hashtags were all from the Brexit
campaign; #Brexit, #Beleave, and #VoteLeave. (Ibid.)

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Political Participation of the Young Generation in the Age of Social Media

VIII. I nfluence of Social Media and Political Participation
during the Brexit Referendum
Taking the above research analyses into consideration, it is rather rational tosuspect that social media had a great influence on Brexiters and their politicalparticipation. However, approaching the EU Referendum results from ademographical dimension raises a question of contradiction. Ipsos-Mori, an UKbased market research company which has been observing and analyzing
general elections since 1979, provided five key findings to explain the voting
patterns of the EU Referendum. The detections included 1) a remarkabledifference in voting preferences based on age, class, educational level andethnicity, 2) age and class had an impact on the voters’ opinions, 3) clear genderdifference in voting patterns, 4) employment, occupational status, and real-estate
ownership signaled differences, and 5) those voters who chose not to participate
in the 2015 general election had turned out to take part in the referendum.
(Ipsos-Mori, 2016)
Generational difference was one of the major characteristics, which was
exposed as the voting patterns were revealed after the EU Referendum results
were i n . St at ist ica l est i mates consol idated by YouG ov d isclosed t hat
approximately 71% of the youngest age group (ages 18-24) voted for Remain
while 29% favored Leave. On the contrary, only 36% of the voters chose to
Remain while 64% voted for Brexit for the oldest age group (65 years old andVoting Preferences by Age
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

75%
60%
40%

55%
45%

56%
44%

39%

25%

18‐24

25‐34

35‐44

45‐54

66%

61%

55‐64

34%

37%

65‐74

75 andabove

Age Groups
Remain

Fig.4

63%

Leave

Remain versus Brexit votes by different age groups.

Source: Ipsos-Mori,“How Britain voted in the 2016 EU referendum.” https://www.ipsos.com/
ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2016-eu-referendum.

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研究ノートabove). (YouGov, 2016) Ipsos-Mori presented a further breakdown in age groups,
which displayed a similar pattern. Notably, youngest of the voters had a higher
percentage of choosing to Remain than the second youngest group, and for ages
65 and above, older the age of the voter, there seems to be a trend that they
are likely to vote for Brexit.
The generational breakdown analyses of the voting preferences uniformly
expose that the older voters had a higher tendency to support Brexit, whereas
approximately three quarters of the youngest age group were in favor of
Remain. Suppose the strong presence of the pro-Leave contents and feeds onsocial media played a significant role in convincing the undecided voters to
support Brexit or swaying the voters towards withdrawal, the most persuaded
age group must be over 55 years of age. Conversely, a statistical research on
the social media usage by age group displays incompatible numbers. The result
by Ofcom shows the frequency of social media use on a weekly basis, and usersof ages 55 and above show a decline in usage whereas for ages 16 to 24, theweekly reach is 99%. (Elder, 2016) Based on this data, almost all social media
users of ages 16 to 24 access their social networking platforms more than oncea week, whilst only one in less than five users of ages 65 and above use social
media every week. Correspondingly, Flint has presented similar findings insocial media usage by age factors, and the trend coincides with Ofcom data.
Additional statistical data which challenges the establishment of correlations
between the use of social media andinfluence on electoral behavior is thesource of news. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Social Media Usageby Age Group 2016at the Reuters Institute for the Study

Age Group

Weekly Reachof Journalism, University of Oxford,

16-24

99%

e x pl a i n s t he i mp or t a nc e of new ssource, both online a nd off line, as
essential information for politics andpublic affairs. (Nielsen, 2016) Televisionin the recent years has been the mostheavily dependent source for news,
until the Internet took over after 2015.
However, generational differences exist
in the choice of main news source. For

25-34

84%

35-44

77%

45-54

64%

55-64

51%

65 and above

24%

Fig. 5: W eekly Social Media Usageby AgeSource: Business Insider. https://www.
businessinsider.com/99-of-young-britishpeople -use - socia l-media- everyweek-2016-8

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Political Participation of the Young Generation in the Age of Social Mediaages 45 and over, television100%

and printed media (such as

80%

newspapers) are still the60%

primary sources of40%

information, whereas online

20%sources including socia l

0%

92%

84%

64%64%

71%
37%

33%

20%
7%

12%
18‐29

media are preeminent for

30‐49

Facebook

those under 25 years old.
Polonski emphasized that

66%

57%

50‐64

Twitter

65 and above

Instagram

Social Media Usage of Popular Platforms in UK(2016)

t he g reater presence ofPlatform
Facebook
Age Group

persuasive pro - Brex it
contents in the social media
triggered grassroots level
activism and mending of
pol it ica l preference towithdrawal, appealing to
L e ave . ( Po l o n s k i , 2 016 )Instagram

18-29

92%

64%

64%

30-49

84%

57%

37%

50-64

71%

33%

12%

65 and above

66%

20%

7%

Fig. 6many more voters toTwitter sage of popular social media platforms
Uby age in UK.

Source: Flint. https://weareflint.co.uk/uk-social-mediademographics-2016-main-findings

Given t he fact t hat highpercentage of Brexit
supporters were over 55

Primary Source of News by Age
2%4%Social Media

8%

13%

Internet(inc. social media)
10%
4%
9%
4%

Print Media
Television

10%

53%

20%

49%

34%

21%

55 and above

Fig. 7

31%

62%

84%

15%

9%
0%

24%
21%

30%
45‐54

40%
35‐44

54%

50%

60%

25‐34

18‐24

70%

80%

90%

Primary source of news by different age groups.

Source: Medium.com (Oxford University) https://medium.com/oxford-university/where-dopeople-get-their-news-8e850a0dea03

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研究ノートyears of age, the same age group has a low percentage of social media usage,and media other than the Internet and the social media are their primarysources of news information, present evidence may not be enough to establish arelationship between social media use and influence on political preference.
Polonski’s assumption would have had a higher credibility if Remain supporters
were the ones with stronger presence in the social media as majority of theRemainers are young, heavy social media users whose main source of news is
the Internet, and only in this scenario the social media could have had aconvincing influence on political mobilization of the young people.

IX. Conclusion
The case of young generation in the EU Referendum exposed a problem ofconfusion of statistics. Although ECREP and Opinium presented a differing
statistics which indicated higher voter turnout for the young generation, and it
is widely recognized by the British media that this result might be closer to theactual turnout than Sky Data, we must not forget that these statistics areapproximates. Voting ballots do not have age or demographics written on them.
This is not to undervalue the achievements of electoral studies and theirresearch, and these statistics facilitate the perception of how people understandthe situation and political trends of the society. However, it is difficult to know
how the youth thinks from numbers, and we need another spectrum to find out
how the young people actually feel towards politics. We need a different
approach to understand the youth better in order to comprehend their higher
involvement in informal political participation than formal political engagement,
and what role the Internet and the social media play.
The conclusion that we may draw from these findings is that since theproliferation of the Internet and the social media, the way in which citizens
express themselves politically has been changing, and there appears to be a
decline in formal political engagement in exchange of increasing informal
political participation. As the PostNote summarizes, factors that activate thechanges in political expression are growing Internet use, levels of higher
education, development of consumerism, and an inclination towards “self” orplacement of individuals over collective action and cooperative decision-making.
The case of predominantly pro-Remain young generation in the EU Referendum
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Political Participation of the Young Generation in the Age of Social Media

has clarified that despite the strong presence of polarized contents in the social
media, majority of the young people were not convinced or swayed to vote forLeave. Hence, the low political mobilization reflects the influence of social media
on youth formal political participation to be very minimal. On the other hand,
informal political participation with a single-cause, such as the cases of antiBrexit marches endeavoring for a second opportunity for a referendum, washighly mobilized by the Internet and the social media, which attests that social
media ca n i n f luence polit ica l mobilizat ion on non-t radit iona l polit ica lengagements. Therefore, the correlations between social media use and youth
political participation may be difficult to establish in the case study of the Brexit
Referendum. Nevertheless, why the young people are highly politically mobilized
for informal political engagements and inversely for conventional politicalparticipation may be an interesting exploration for further research on therelationship between the social media use and the youth political participation.
As of 2019, the chasm of the Remainers and the Brexiters as well as in
between the generations continues to exit, and we still cannot procure acommon denominator towards a united future for the United Kingdom.
However, as Bruter noted, it is evident that young people were politicallymobilized to vote for the referendum with a limited influence of the social
media, because they realized the critical significance of the EU referendum intheir future and the direction of where their country is headed. (Bruter, 2016)
The influential power of the social media and the Internet is still incalculable,
and the continuous expansion of the digital sphere and the digital world
developing into a non-virtual place may develop political attitudes and newmeans of political participation that are far from what we can imagine today.
Digital Natives continue to grow their population, and they will outnumber andoverwhelm the Digital Immigrants in less than half a century. It will beinteresting to continue the observation of such generation becoming the
majority, and to see their political views become the public opinion as they willbe the mainstream political participants in the near future.

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Political Participation of the Young Generation in the Age of Social Media

Abstract

Political Participation of the Young
Generation in the Age of Social Media― The Brexit Case ―The development of political attitudes has been the subject of research formany scholars, especially during the times of crucial political decision making,such as national referendums and elections. With the advancement of theInternet technology and the proliferation of social media, the research has been
evolving to a new phase to include the analysis of the relationship between theInternet usage in political campaigns and the formation or alteration of political
attitudes.
This article analyzes the case of the young voters and their politicalparticipation during the 2016 United Kingdom European Union Membership
Referendum in relations to their usage of social media. Despite the fact thatmany researchers are paying more attention to the Internet’s contribution topolitical mobilization, these young adults, who are the most active users of theInternet, displayed a low voter turn-out for the Brexit Referendum. This article
tries to elucidate the relationship between the young generation’s attitude
towards the social media and their level of political participation in formal andinformal engagements, and explain the role of the online political campaigningin the development of young people’s political attitudes. It will present that thecorrelation between the use of the social media and political participation of theyoung people differs, depending on the different forms of political engagements.

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