From entertainment to citizenship: A comparative study of the political uses of popular culture by first-time voters

Abstract

This article investigates the extent to which young people use different forms of popular culture to express and make sense of their relationship to politics. We look closely at young people's interpretation of popular culture in order to find out whether, and if so how, it plays a political role, using focus groups and interviews with first-time voters in the UK. We adapt the theoretical framework and method used by David Buckingham in his study of the relationship between news media and youth citizenship. While Buckingham concludes that the nature of news media systematically alienates and excludes substantial sectors of the audience, we find that popular culture offers young people a range of often salient ways of expressing and making sense of their relationship to politics.