Chapter 11: Politically Engaged and Alienated Youth: Reevaluating 2010 UK Student Protests

Over the past two decades, political scientists and pundits gave little meaningful thought or attention to youth politics beyond the narrative of indifference. The sudden rise in youths’ voting rates during the 2008 and 2012 United States presidential contests renewed the desire to understand youth perceptions and involvement in the political realm. From apathy to necessity, younger constituents gained positive importance among candidates and campaigns with increased responsibility for the electoral fate of the nation.¹ Discourse on youth politics in the United Kingdom followed a similar tact, until recently describing youth as unengaged and distant from electoral forms of political representation. Through examining political debates on education, I argue that youth do show considerable engagement with traditional modes of participation despite their skepticism of party responsiveness. Most notable in this story, young people utilized new digital media to participate in discourse and action critical to electoral politics. And, if alienated by the political process, youth can and will use online media to pivot towards non-traditional political expressions like protest. This case study highlights how youth express their political selves through the most effective and powerful tool available: digital media.