Midterm Assignment

Lauren Popovich and Samantha Nicles take to the streets of Boston University to gauge student reactions on how well the candidates are reaching the student population. At a time when Millennials are at the forefront of various political issues such as race, wealth inequality, climate change, etc., why are only about 20% of Millennials voting? The question facing current candidates is: why are approximately three quarters of Millennials opting to skip the polls on election day?

 Source: Boston Globe via CIRCLE 

I joined fellow BU Communications student Lauren Popovich to conduct interviews across Boston University's campus to gauge students' interest in the upcoming election. We found that BU is quite a mix of informed versus uninformed, interested versus disinterested.

In order to conclude why students are not voting in the capacity they used to, we had to dig beyond the students themselves. That is, we cannot blame Millennials as a group for not voting; we must look at society as a whole. In doing this, we may blame the culture at large.

In other words, Millennials grew up in an age so vastly different from those before them. The past few decades have witnessed astounding advances in technology. This period of innovation has coincided with Millennials' childhood, shaping the way that Millennials interact and transforming their expectations for creativity and innovation in their own work lives. Millennials themselves even cite technology as what makes their generation unique.

Source: PEW Research 

In relation to politics, this age of technology changes a lot within this group of young people. For example, technology has allowed Millennials to grow up with the idea of instant gratification. With the Internet, everything is at their fingertips and social change is as easy as starting a hashtag on Twitter or Snapchatting selfies at a rally for Syrian refugees.

Thus, Millennials no longer view societal change to be equivalent with casting their ballot in every election. Rather, they are accustomed to the more rapid change that technology and the Internet provide.

 According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE,) voting as it was is no longer an effective means of creating societal change for the average Millennial voter.

CIRCLE's director Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg said the problem of Millennial voters is only getting worse. 

"If future campaigns are interested in mobilizing large numbers of young voters," Kawashima-Ginsberg states, "research shows that campaigns not only need to talk to them, but should also involve them more as well as volunteers."

BU COM Professor John Carroll could not agree more. "It is not enough that Hillary Clinton is on Instagram or that Bernie Sanders has a Snapchat," Carroll states. These candidates have to do more to get Millennial attention.

Hillary Clinton's personal Instagram 

 Bernie Sanders admits he is new to "Snapshot" (aka: Snapchat)

 Overall, students at BU agree on the fact that candidates need to do more than exist on social media channels to get their messages to reach the Millennial generation; they need to interact and involve Millennials on those channels to gain traction in the young generation.




CIRCLE identified 12.4 million young voters who were registered but did not vote in 2014. Mobilize enough of them, in enough swing states, and you're talking about the power to alter a major election.