Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Supervisor: Peter M. Ward. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Young people in the Western world demonstrate that they have little connection to democratic processes through their increasing absence from the polls at election time. This trend is evidenced in New Zealand where the secondary school curriculum has little content concerning electoral and political processes. Low voter turn-out is particularly prevalent in the triennial local body elections where only a small proportion of all eligible voters participate.This research is based within two North Shore City secondary schools and has two objectives. The first to establish the current understanding of Year 13 students of the local authority, its activities, governance and decision-making processes and the second to assess the effect of this information on the election activity of the participants. Following the provision of this information to the selected classes and after 2004 local authority elections, the same classes completed questionnaires to ascertain whether their participation (voting and non-voting) in the elections was affected by this intervention. A post-election focus group of non-school-based newly eligible voters enabled some qualitative inquiry into rationale and attitudes.The findings indicate a wide degree of ignorance and reinforce the current political situation where young people see no relevance to them of local authority politics. The research highlights the need to engage young people in civic matters and increase their ownership of and involvement in the democratic process.

Young people in the Western world demonstrate that they have little connection to democratic processes through their increasing absence from the polls at election time. This trend is evidenced in New Zealand where the secondary school curriculum has little content concerning electoral and political processes. Low voter turn-out is particularly prevalent in the triennial local body elections where only a small proportion of all eligible voters participate.This research is based within two North Shore City secondary schools and has two objectives. The first to establish the current understanding of Year 13 students of the local authority, its activities, governance and decision-making processes and the second to assess the effect of this information on the election activity of the participants. Following the provision of this information to the selected classes and after 2004 local authority elections, the same classes completed questionnaires to ascertain whether their participation (voting and non-voting) in the elections was affected by this intervention. A post-election focus group of non-school-based newly eligible voters enabled some qualitative inquiry into rationale and attitudes.The findings indicate a wide degree of ignorance and reinforce the current political situation where young people see no relevance to them of local authority politics. The research highlights the need to engage young people in civic matters and increase their ownership of and involvement in the democratic process.

This thesis examines the electoral performance of minor parties in English local government from 1973 to 2008, a period that has seen a sharp increase in the numbers of candidates from such parties. Beginning with an overall assessment of the extent to which candidates from minor parties have contested local elections and the level of success in being elected, the thesis then explores the spatial distribution of minor party candidates, the types of people that become candidates and, considering the relative lack of electoral success, their motivations for standing. Traditional studies of party systems frequently exclude parties that do not win a relatively large share of votes and seats or are incapable of forming part of a subsequent government or administration. However broader definitions of what constitutes a party allow that small political parties can influence policy and the behaviour of mainstream parties simply because they are present in an electoral contest. Using the concept of presence, this thesis demonstrates that there has been an unprecedented increase in contestation by minor parties over the past 10 years that has not been proportionally matched by vote share and electoral success. Examination of patterns of contestation reveals that the growth in minor party contestation is uneven across England but is not apparently related to the different electoral systems used by local authorities. Furthermore, it becomes clearer that minor party contestation appears to be primarily a function of temporal local factors and is not necessarily influenced by electoral history, thus making it difficult to predict beforehand where and when such parties may begin to contest local elections and the relative level of electoral support they might subsequently enjoy. Having examined at a general level the electoral nature of minor party activity the thesis offers a new typology, an analytical framework within which to locate the various types of minor parties that feature in modern English local government. Using individual level data we examine whether it is possible to distinguish between candidates based on their party’s location within this typology, thus testing whether the recent increase in minor party activity is due to the rise of a new political class. Initial survey observations subsequently inform the development of a multinomial logistic regression model that seeks to identify similarities and differences between candidates standing for the range of parties currently contesting English local elections. This modelling suggests that candidates from across the range of minor parties are rather similar to each other and, moreover, similar to candidates from major parties. There does not, therefore, appear to be any association between the rise in the frequency of minor party candidates and the existence of a new political class of candidates that are different to those already located within the party political mainstream. Consequently, the value of the typology as a heuristic for establishing a better understanding of minor party activity is brought into question and further research into the phenomenon of minor party contestation in English local government is recommended.

No description available.

No description available.

Magister Legum - LLM / South Africa

Global research shows that media owners tend to influence the editorial direction of their newspapers. Such influence generally tends to be in line with the media owner’s economic and / or political interests. Naturally, this is a challenge because media is regarded as the fourth estate and is supposed to be an objective yet effective channel for the citizenry to make informed decisions about their world. The study seeks to find out if the owners of four daily newspapers in South Africa, based on their political proximity; may have influenced their newspapers to be biased in favour or against any of the three biggest political parties contesting the 2016 Local Government Elections. This study is an exploratory and descriptive content analysis based on an Agenda Setting theoretic framework – supported by framing analysis and game framing. Findings reveal the correlation between the media owner’s interests and the biased reporting within their respective newspaper. This suggests that although media may not be directly or explicitly forced to adopt a specific ideology, it can be argued that political relations with media owners can influence editorial decisions. Therefore, it can be inferred that media owners of The New Age, The Citizen and The Star influenced editorial content of their newspapers during the 2016 local government elections. Given the findings of this study and the elections scheduled for 2019 in South Africa, it is important for more political communication studies to be conducted in order to establish guidelines for unbiased news reporting across all media – including newspapers. Alternatively, to compel media owners to declare their bias towards and against specific political parties in each news content, upfront. Particularly important during election period, is the need for each media (including newspapers) to have an independent editor – potentially one from the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to ensure that each piece of content produced is validated as bias or impartial. / Communication Science / M.A. (Communication Science)