Last Updated: December 29, 2000
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American voters - unplugged
America: Land of the free
Home of the irritables, the doers, the alienateds,
the unpluggeds and the don't knows
By Ellen Shearer
Not voting has become a defining trait of our democracy. In 1996, for
the first time, less than half of voting-age Americans cast ballots in
a presidential election. It's likely this year's election will set another
new low.
The drop in voter turnout ought to worry us, not just as citizens, but
as editors. Nonvoters are less likely to read newspapers than voters. The
growing ranks of nonvoters parallel the drop in newspaper circulation.
It's certainly not a direct cause-and-effect, but as more Americans become
disconnected from politics and government, much of our mission becomes
irrelevant to them.
Nonvoters already believe we consider them irrelevant, citing political
polls by media organizations that routinely poll only likely voters.
Young Americans, the most likely nonvoters, believe they have something
important to say, but that no one is listening, according to a recent Medill
News Service survey of Generation Y, part of a yearlong effort to engage
young adults in news about the presidential campaigns.
It was precisely because nonvoters were ignored that Medill News Service
decided to survey likely nonvoters before the 1996 election. What we found
in talking to 1,001 likely nonvoters was as simple as common sense: that
they don't fit one stereotype of politics, race, age or income. When finally
asked for their opinions, they are as opinionated and their views are as
varied as those of voters.
The Medill poll identified five types of nonvoters whose members view
government, elected officials and political parties and other institutions,
and the news about those institutions and officials, quite differently.
The Doers, the largest of the clusters, look startlingly like voters
and represent the largest single segment of nonvoters. The Alienateds most
closely capture the stereotypical nonvoter profile, but represent only
12 percent of all nonvoters.
The largest group of likely nonvoters, Doers, represents 29 percent
of the total. Although disproportionately young, even for nonvoters, they
also are more affluent, better educated and more involved in their communities
or volunteer groups. They are avid news consumers and follow political
news regularly. They are more likely than other nonvoters to have contacted
a politician and, as a group, think better of politicians, the parties
and government than other nonvoters. They believe they control their success
in life. They believe that, if they voted, their vote would count.
Only slightly smaller than Doers is the group called the Unpluggeds
- 27 percent of all nonvoters. Although its members, too, are quite
young - 81 percent hadn't reached age 45, including 46 percent who weren't
yet 30 - that is one of the few characteristics they share.
Unpluggeds are much less educated than Doers, less likely to read newspapers
or watch TV news or follow politics. No Unpluggeds said they read the newspaper
every day; only one-third watch TV news six or seven times a week. Forty-seven
percent of Unpluggeds also had decided against voting in the 1996 presidential
election; among all nonvoters, they were the most likely to have made that
decision when we surveyed them four months before the election.
The third largest group of nonvoters, the Irritables, knows what's going
on in politics and public affairs, and they don't like it. The group is
the second oldest of the five, with 33 percent of Irritables at least 45
years old. Its members are more affluent than all other nonvoters
except the Doers; 48 percent earn at least $30,000 a year. And they are
educated: 25 percent of all Irritables had a college diploma, the highest
percentage among the five clusters. Irritables represent 18 percent of
all nonvoters.
Fourteen percent of likely nonvoters are Don't Knows. They are the least
likely to be registered to vote, nearly a quarter haven't graduated from
high school and more than half earn less than $30,000.
Only the Alienateds and Irritables are older. The Don't Knows also are
the most female-dominated of the clusters. Among Don't Knows, 73 percent
had no opinion on Congress, and more than 90 percent didn't express any
opinion on either the Republican or Democratic parties.
Only 12 percent of nonvoters fall into the Alienated cluster. They are
the hardest core of nonvoters. In July 1996, nearly one-third already had
decided they would not be voting in November. They also are the oldest
of the five groups of nonvoters and the poorest. Politically, they're
the most pessimistic.
Nonvoters as a whole are not necessarily oblivious to current events
or news. Roughly half of nonvoters said they watch a TV news broadcast
six or seven nights a week, and 28 percent said they read a newspaper as
often. However, their overall interest in political or public policy news
was much lower than among the population as a whole.
What we should pay attention to, though, is the differences in information
consumption among the five types of nonvoters: 78 percent of Doers say
they read a paper at least four times a week. While only 57 percent of
nonvoters were following news about government and public affairs, 73 percent
of Doers were relatively plugged in to political news.
Thirty-four percent said they followed government and public affairs
news most of the time and 39 percent did so at least some of the time.
Doers also are the group whose members are most likely to become voters
if they decide it's worth their while. To get more of them to pick up our
newspapers or go to our Web sites, we have to show them why it's worthwhile,
to build the links between their lives and election outcomes.
It won't be easy: We're considered part of the problem. Forty-eight
percent of nonvoters say the news media gets in the way of society solving
its problems.
Here's why: "They have a hidden agenda. And I don't trust them," says
nonvoter Caren Freigenberg of Cliffside Park, N.J. If you make a mistake,
be upfront about it instead of always twisting things." Or this, from James
Ayarkwa-Duah of Dallas: "It would be very nice if one day the media can
say (an elected official) has done a good job."
Another perspective, from State College, Pa., nonvoter Keith Roberts:
"If the news media related truthful information to the American public,
they could really inform a lot of people who aren't well-informed, But
... if you give bad information, you have ill-informed people. ... I'm
disturbed by the truths I don't hear in the media."
Many nonvoters also view the news media as part of a political establishment
that seems an elite culture to them.
From these glimpses into nonvoters' views of the media, a few possibilities
for a different type of political coverage appear:
Demystify government and politics
Nonvoter Melody Lewis of West Plains, Mo., says she can't imagine a
day in the life of a public official. We can show her. During this year's
campaign season, go to a campaign headquarters and tell people what happens
there and why - not the political strategy, but the nuts-and-bolts implementation
of that strategy. Talk to the low-level volunteers about their attraction
to politics.
Explain the game, explain the rules
Many nonvoters, especially young adults, don't know what a caucus is
or how it differs from a primary; certainly open vs. closed primaries,
which we write about routinely, aren't part of their lexicon. Explain why
political conventions are held. Don't call someone a delegate without explaining
how you become a delegate and what the role of a delegate is.
Explain how the voting machines in your city work. A number of young
people say they would feel stupid going to a polling place because they
don't know what to do.
Show the effects of government on daily lives
We can write stories that directly connect government to daily life.
Explain how a government process or proposed legislation would actually
affect daily living. As part of our project to cover the presidential campaigns
for young people, we followed two Mississippi workers for a day and wrote
about the regulations and laws that affected their jobs, cars, meals, clothing
purchase and more.
Put their voices in stories
David Broder of the Washington Post routinely spends days knocking on
doors in a precinct to get the voices of average Americans into his reporting.
We can do it: No more "usual suspects." There are young people with political
expertise, average citizens with informed viewpoints who would help our
stories be more authentic to our readers.
Frame the issues in their terms
When Americans say education is a top concern, do they mean the same
thing that politicians do in setting forth a policy? Certainly for young
people, the answer is no. A clearer understanding of the issues behind
the large theme of education would help connect stories to readers.
For instance, young people agree education is the top problem facing
the country, but when we asked what they meant, the answer was school safety
and kids with guns. That type of information could change the way we cover
the issues.
It's the message, stupid
Finally, it's clear that it's the message, not the medium, that will
attract or repel readers. In our surveys of young people this year, we
found that they go to the Internet, but not for political information any
more than they use other media for political news.
Nearly 60 percent of young people don't pay much attention to political
news, regardless of whether it's on the Web. However, they do go to the
Web for political news more than their parents do. And they do use
a wider variety of sources and rely more on MTV, Jay Leno and Saturday
Night Live for political news.
Different writing styles might attract these young adults to us. Studies
have found young adults prefer narrative style and second-person, news-you-can-use
approaches. Politics lends itself to such story-telling techniques.
And, in the end, it's the stories, not the delivery mechanism, that will
lure these nonvoters to our political pages.
Shearer is co-director of Medill News Service in Washington, co-chair
of the Newspaper Department of the Medill School of Journalism and author
of Nonvoters: America's No-Shows.
