<p>Föreliggande uppsats kartlägger det politiska intressets och den politiska apatins utveckling i Sverige under 1900-talets senare hälft. Det undersöks också hur antalet ”nya”, så kallade icke traditionella partier med mandat i kommunfullmäktige, förändrats under samma tidsperiod. Genom att förankra studiet av det politiska intresset i en explicit teoretisk grund (ett av uppsatsens syften), som i stor utsträckning förbisetts i tidigare undersökningar, härleddes hypotesen att det politiska intresset torde ha ökat parallellt med ökningen av antalet ”nya” partier i kommunfullmäktige, men likaså med minskningen av etablerade partiers medlemmar och en stigande politikermisstro. Underförstått i detta antagande ligger att begreppet politiskt intresse inte låter sig reduceras till ett intresse för etablerade politiska institutioner – en tes som genomgående drivs i uppsatsen. Hopfogandet av en teoretisk grundval för det politiska intressebegreppet innebar också att betydligt fler mått på politiskt intresse och politisk apati, än de i föregående studier hittills få använda mått, kunde härledas i denna undersökning – medförande en förbättrad reliabilitet. Rådata inhämtades från de svenska valundersökningarna. Resultatet bekräftar det antagna sambandet mellan å ena sidan ökad partitillförsel och å andra sidan ökat politiskt intresse och sjunkande apati. Resultatet visar även att den politiska apatin är avsevärt mycket lägre än vad som påvisats i andra undersökningar, och att apatin i stort sätt sjunkit konstant sedan 1960-talet. Dock kan en ökning av den politiska apatin urskiljas i slutet av 1990-talet. Avslutningsvis diskuteras det politiska intressets väsen. Det görs gällande, till skillnad från den gängse uppfattningen, att en sjunkande politisk apati och ett stigande politiskt intresse har sin förklaring i en utbredning av särintressen, knapphet, mångfald, specialisering, värderelativism och i avsaknaden av en gemensam politisk ”myt” i moderna västerländska samhällen. Den motsatta förklaringen framförs emellertid ofta, nämligen att särintressen får medborgarna att tappa intresset för politik – den gemensamma angelägenheten – och apatiskt vända den ryggen. Men denna förklaring och definition av det politiska intressebegreppet, som betraktar särintressen som ”opolitiska” intressen och fråntar dem en roll som politiska drivkrafter, riskerar att göra etablerade politiska institutioner till självändamål. Därmed kontrasterar förklaringen mer eller mindre den representativa demokratins grundtanke: att politik skall spegla samhället och att politik är ett medel. För att undvika att göra redan institutionaliserad politik till aristoteliska självändamål, avrundas uppsatsen med ett förtydligande och en återformulering av en nygammal, liberalistisk politisk intresseontologi.</p> / <p>The presented paper maps out the development of political interest and political apathy in Sweden in the latter part of the 20th century. Also, it is investigated how the number of “new” – non traditional – parties with seats in the municipality, has changed during the refered period of time. By anchoring the research of political interest in a explicit theoretical foundation (one of the papers purpuses), wich highly has been disregarded in earlier research, it was hypothesized that the political interest has increased parallelly with an increasing number of “new” parties in the municipality, but also with an decreasing number of members in established parties and a increased general political distrust. Implicit, this hypothesis claims that the concpetion of political interest not can be reduced to mean the same as an interest in established political institutions – a thesis that is pinpointed throughout the paper. The forward-bringing of a theoretical foundation of the concpetion of political interest, also implied that significantly more measurements of the concept, than is used in other studies, could be deduced within the framwork of this study – improving reliability. Empirical data was mainly collected from the Swedish election studies. The results confirm the hypothesized correlation between increased political interest, decreased political apathy and a growing number of new parties at the local level. As well, it is showed that the political apathy is considerably lower than it has been claimed in other inquiries, and that the apathy almost constantly has decreased since the 1960th. Although, a small increase in the political apathy seems to arise in the late 1990th. Finally, the ontology of the political interest is discussed. It is argued, unlike the general understanding of politics, that the decrease in poltical apathy and the increase in political interest have its explanation in a spreading and prevalence of “special interests”, scarcity, manifoldness, specialization, and value-relativism, and in a loss of a common political “myth” in modern western societies. Although, the opposite explanation is often put forward, namely that “special interests” makes citizens losing interest in political issues – common concerns – and apathical turning its back. But, this explanation and definition of the concept of political interest, that sees special interests as “unpolitical” interests with limited political significance, risks doing established political institutions to ends in themselves. Thererfore, the explanation more or less contrasts the main idea of representative democracy, that is: politics is aimed at mirroring and reflecting society, and politic is a “mean”. In order to avoid doing established political instituions to Aristotelian ends in themselves, the paper is finally reformulating and clarifyinging a blend of new and old liberalistic ontology of political interest.</p>

Abstract   Youths and adolescents have for a long period of time, and at a high degree, beenabsent from the party political stage. The causes for this have been discussed inthis essay through a quantitative survey made in an upper secondary school class,consisting of some 19 subjects in the municipality of Kalmar. Tied together withrelevant literature and discourse on the subject, the essay has dealt with thepossible societal-, system- and individual barriers for political interest andinvolvement. Central questions for this essay has been for instance; age, gender,social background, geographical domicile, as well as the decline of ideology, theforms of current party politics, political interest, political engagement and soforth. The concluding remarks contain not only a mix of these barriers existing,not exclusively, for young and adolescents but different ground for them as well.On the one hand, there exist barriers which exclude youth from the conventionalpolitical life, but on the other, the more individualised youth of today, prefer to agreater extent not to participate under the conventional circumstances that partypolitics has to offer. This adds up to one of the most challenging democraticproblems facing Swedish modern day democracy.Youths and adolescents have for a long period of time, and at a high degree, beenabsent from the party political stage. The causes for this have been discussed inthis essay through a quantitative survey made in an upper secondary school class,consisting of some 19 subjects in the municipality of Kalmar. Tied together withrelevant literature and discourse on the subject, the essay has dealt with thepossible societal-, system- and individual barriers for political interest andinvolvement. Central questions for this essay has been for instance; age, gender,social background, geographical domicile, as well as the decline of ideology, theforms of current party politics, political interest, political engagement and soforth. The concluding remarks contain not only a mix of these barriers existing,not exclusively, for young and adolescents but different ground for them as well.On the one hand, there exist barriers which exclude youth from the conventionalpolitical life, but on the other, the more individualised youth of today, prefer to agreater extent not to participate under the conventional circumstances that partypolitics has to offer. This adds up to one of the most challenging democraticproblems facing Swedish modern day democracy.

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p> </p><p>Youths and adolescents have for a long period of time, and at a high degree, beenabsent from the party political stage. The causes for this have been discussed inthis essay through a quantitative survey made in an upper secondary school class,consisting of some 19 subjects in the municipality of Kalmar. Tied together withrelevant literature and discourse on the subject, the essay has dealt with thepossible societal-, system- and individual barriers for political interest andinvolvement. Central questions for this essay has been for instance; age, gender,social background, geographical domicile, as well as the decline of ideology, theforms of current party politics, political interest, political engagement and soforth. The concluding remarks contain not only a mix of these barriers existing,not exclusively, for young and adolescents but different ground for them as well.On the one hand, there exist barriers which exclude youth from the conventionalpolitical life, but on the other, the more individualised youth of today, prefer to agreater extent not to participate under the conventional circumstances that partypolitics has to offer. This adds up to one of the most challenging democraticproblems facing Swedish modern day democracy.Youths and adolescents have for a long period of time, and at a high degree, beenabsent from the party political stage. The causes for this have been discussed inthis essay through a quantitative survey made in an upper secondary school class,consisting of some 19 subjects in the municipality of Kalmar. Tied together withrelevant literature and discourse on the subject, the essay has dealt with thepossible societal-, system- and individual barriers for political interest andinvolvement. Central questions for this essay has been for instance; age, gender,social background, geographical domicile, as well as the decline of ideology, theforms of current party politics, political interest, political engagement and soforth. The concluding remarks contain not only a mix of these barriers existing,not exclusively, for young and adolescents but different ground for them as well.On the one hand, there exist barriers which exclude youth from the conventionalpolitical life, but on the other, the more individualised youth of today, prefer to agreater extent not to participate under the conventional circumstances that partypolitics has to offer. This adds up to one of the most challenging democraticproblems facing Swedish modern day democracy.</p>

Syftet med uppsatsen är att bidra till forskningen om politiskt förtroende bland unga i Sverige, genom att skapa en djupare kunskap och förståelse för ungas förtroende för politiska partier. Det teoretiska ramverket bygger på tidigare forskning om vilka faktorer som kan tänkas påverka förtroende. Erfarenhetskapital, livsfaser och individens tolkning används som verktyg vid analys av resultatet. Det empiriska materialet för att besvara syfte och frågeställning har samlats in med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer med personer mellan 16 och 26 år. Resultatet pekar på relation mellan upplevd kunskap och intresse hos individen, vilket i sin tur hänger samman med förtroende för politiska partier. Intresse skapas av att en upplevd kunskap tycks finnas, samtidigt som kunskap genererar i intresse för politiken och där dessa två ger effekt på förtroende för de politiska partierna.

The democratic institutions are being challenged in many of the world's democracies, where more and more anti-democratic elements have gained influence in politics. The preservation of democracy depends on the coming generations believing that its values are something worth protecting. Sweden has high voter turnout among young voters. However, in the 2022 parliamentary election, turnout fell at the same time as more voted for right-wing parties, which is a break from the trend. In the wake of this, this study has tried to get closer to the first-time voters in Nybro to take part in their views on politics and social issues, to what extent they are interested in these and what factors influence them. The study has been based on the theory of framing and studies about right-wing populism. In addition, eight first-time voters were interviewed about their views and experiences of politics and society. The results show that the first-time voter's views of political issues depend on what framing they have. Also, the tendency to be politically interested has to do with his or her level of education, knowledge of the political system and insights into how political decisions affect his or her life.

Syftet med denna studie är att ta reda på hur stor andel studenter det är som tar del av nyheter på Facebook, och identifiera vad som kännetecknar dessa personer. Undersökningen görs med grund i att nyheter får allt mer utrymme i facebookflödet vilket är något som bidrar till större klyftor i människors nyhetskonsumtion. Fortsättningsvis blir det relevant att utvidga förståelsen för vilka dessa konsumenter är. Studien har genomförts med en kvantitativ metod i form av en enkätundersökning. Empirin har framtagits genom att 114 respondenter fått svara på sammanlagt 17 frågor gällande individuella faktorer, sin nyhetskonsumtion på Facebook samt vilka fördelar de ser med plattformen. Urvalet har begränsats till studenter på Karlstads universitet inom fyra olika utbildningar: ingenjör, medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap, ekonomi och handel samt sjuksköterska. Respondenterna har nåtts genom att enkäten publicerats i respektive utbildnings facebookgrupp. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten för studien är uses and gratifications, sociala fält, primära och sekundära nyhetspubliker samt tidigare forskning som berört nyhetskonsumtion både i traditionell mening och på sociala medier. Det finns en bred vetenskaplig grund vars fokus ligger på hur medierna påverkar publiken, men uses and gratifications belyser istället motsatsen, nämligen vad publiken gör med medierna. Därför blir framförallt denna teori den som genomgående berörs i studien. Resultatet i undersökningen visar att 92 procent av alla tillfrågade studenter tar del av nyheter via Facebook. Frekventa läsare, det vill säga de som gör det dagligen eller flera gånger i veckan, utgör 49 procent och därmed nästan hälften. Dessa flitiga konsumenter kännetecknas främst av att vara sjuksköterskor, kvinnor och av att ha studerat en kortare tid. I motsats är de minst benägna läsarna av facebooknyheter medie- och kommunikationsstudenter, män och personer som studerat en längre tid. Skillnaderna har sin grund dels i att kvinnor generellt använder det sociala nätverket mer än män, och dels i att olika utbildningar har skilda preferenser. Sjuksköterskor konsumerar frekvent nyheter på Facebook på grund av dess bekvämlighet och för att nyheterna ligger i deras intresse, medan mediestudenter oftare vänder sig till andra källor som ett resultat av att de vill täcka särskilda informationsbehov. Uppväxthem och föräldrarnas utbildningsnivå har inte visat sig vara av större betydelse för vem som är den mest frekventa nyhetskonsumenten på Facebook, inte heller graden av politiskt intresse. Här konsumerar både de med högt, medel och lågt intresse för politik dagligen nyheter på plattformen. Dock kan man se en tydlig dynamik mellan den förstnämnda och sistnämnda. De högt politiskt intresserade är de som i högst utsträckning följer en nyhets ursprungliga avsändare, samtidigt som dessa uppvisar en mer positiv inställning till interaktiviteten på Facebook där de kan dela, kommentera och diskutera nyheter. Därigenom blir de en primär nyhetspublik vilka sorterar ut och tolkar nyheter för de lågt politiskt intresserade, som i sin tur utmärks som en sekundär. Således influerar den primära publiken den sekundära med sina värderingar, åsikter och uppfattningar vilket enligt forskningen kan medföra en demokratisk utmaning. / The purpose of this study is to find out how big percentage of students that reads news on Facebook, and to identify what characterizes these people. The study is made with the knowledge that news seems to take more space in Facebook’s feed, which is something that contributes to larger gaps in people’s news consumption. Therefore, it will in the long run be relevant to extend the understanding of who these consumers are. The study has been carried out with a quantitative method in the shape of a survey. The empirical data has been retrieved by letting 114 respondents answer 17 questions concerning individual factors, their news consumption on Facebook and what advantages they see with the social platform. The sample has been limited to students at four different educational programs at the university of Karlstad; engineering, media and communications, economy and trade and nursing. The respondents have been reached by publishing the survey in the different groups on Facebook, belonging to each education. The theoretical starting point of the study is Uses and gratifications, Fields, Primary and secondary news audiences and previous research about news consumption both in a traditionally sense and on social media. There is a wide scientific belief that focuses on how the media is affecting the audience, but uses and gratifications instead, highlights the contrary - namely what the audience is doing with the media. That is why this theory is mainly used in this study. The results shows that 92 percent of all respondents read news on Facebook. Frequent readers, meaning the people that consume news on Facebook each day or several times a week, make up 49 percent of the total amount of students and thereby almost half of the totalt respondents. These frequent consumers are characterized mainly by the fact that they are students at the nursing program, females, and have been studying for a shorter period of time. In contrast, the least likely readers are students at the media and communications program, males, and those who have studied for a longer period of time. These differences are seen firstly because of the fact that females tend to spend more time on Facebook in general, and secondly since different educations have different preferences. The nurses frequently consumes news on Facebook because of its convenience and because they find that the news lies within their interests, while media students more often turn to other sources as a result of wanting to cover a certain need for information. Childhood home and the parent’s level of education have not shown to be of great significance to decide whether a person consumes news on Facebook, and neither has political interest. Both people with high, medium and low interest in politics daily consume news on the social platform. However, it is possible to see a clear dynamic between the first and last. Individuals with a high political interest tend to follow the original source of the news, whilst displaying a positive attitude to the interactivity on Facebook and the possibility to comment, discuss and share news. Because of this, they function as the primary news audience who sorts out and interpreters the news for the low politically interested, which, in turn, is characterized as the secondary news audience. Thus, the primary news audience influences the secondary with values, opinions and perceptions of the news, which according to research is something that could induce a democratic challenge.

Föreliggande uppsats kartlägger det politiska intressets och den politiska apatins utveckling i Sverige under 1900-talets senare hälft. Det undersöks också hur antalet ”nya”, så kallade icke traditionella partier med mandat i kommunfullmäktige, förändrats under samma tidsperiod. Genom att förankra studiet av det politiska intresset i en explicit teoretisk grund (ett av uppsatsens syften), som i stor utsträckning förbisetts i tidigare undersökningar, härleddes hypotesen att det politiska intresset torde ha ökat parallellt med ökningen av antalet ”nya” partier i kommunfullmäktige, men likaså med minskningen av etablerade partiers medlemmar och en stigande politikermisstro. Underförstått i detta antagande ligger att begreppet politiskt intresse inte låter sig reduceras till ett intresse för etablerade politiska institutioner – en tes som genomgående drivs i uppsatsen. Hopfogandet av en teoretisk grundval för det politiska intressebegreppet innebar också att betydligt fler mått på politiskt intresse och politisk apati, än de i föregående studier hittills få använda mått, kunde härledas i denna undersökning – medförande en förbättrad reliabilitet. Rådata inhämtades från de svenska valundersökningarna. Resultatet bekräftar det antagna sambandet mellan å ena sidan ökad partitillförsel och å andra sidan ökat politiskt intresse och sjunkande apati. Resultatet visar även att den politiska apatin är avsevärt mycket lägre än vad som påvisats i andra undersökningar, och att apatin i stort sätt sjunkit konstant sedan 1960-talet. Dock kan en ökning av den politiska apatin urskiljas i slutet av 1990-talet. Avslutningsvis diskuteras det politiska intressets väsen. Det görs gällande, till skillnad från den gängse uppfattningen, att en sjunkande politisk apati och ett stigande politiskt intresse har sin förklaring i en utbredning av särintressen, knapphet, mångfald, specialisering, värderelativism och i avsaknaden av en gemensam politisk ”myt” i moderna västerländska samhällen. Den motsatta förklaringen framförs emellertid ofta, nämligen att särintressen får medborgarna att tappa intresset för politik – den gemensamma angelägenheten – och apatiskt vända den ryggen. Men denna förklaring och definition av det politiska intressebegreppet, som betraktar särintressen som ”opolitiska” intressen och fråntar dem en roll som politiska drivkrafter, riskerar att göra etablerade politiska institutioner till självändamål. Därmed kontrasterar förklaringen mer eller mindre den representativa demokratins grundtanke: att politik skall spegla samhället och att politik är ett medel. För att undvika att göra redan institutionaliserad politik till aristoteliska självändamål, avrundas uppsatsen med ett förtydligande och en återformulering av en nygammal, liberalistisk politisk intresseontologi. / The presented paper maps out the development of political interest and political apathy in Sweden in the latter part of the 20th century. Also, it is investigated how the number of “new” – non traditional – parties with seats in the municipality, has changed during the refered period of time. By anchoring the research of political interest in a explicit theoretical foundation (one of the papers purpuses), wich highly has been disregarded in earlier research, it was hypothesized that the political interest has increased parallelly with an increasing number of “new” parties in the municipality, but also with an decreasing number of members in established parties and a increased general political distrust. Implicit, this hypothesis claims that the concpetion of political interest not can be reduced to mean the same as an interest in established political institutions – a thesis that is pinpointed throughout the paper. The forward-bringing of a theoretical foundation of the concpetion of political interest, also implied that significantly more measurements of the concept, than is used in other studies, could be deduced within the framwork of this study – improving reliability. Empirical data was mainly collected from the Swedish election studies. The results confirm the hypothesized correlation between increased political interest, decreased political apathy and a growing number of new parties at the local level. As well, it is showed that the political apathy is considerably lower than it has been claimed in other inquiries, and that the apathy almost constantly has decreased since the 1960th. Although, a small increase in the political apathy seems to arise in the late 1990th. Finally, the ontology of the political interest is discussed. It is argued, unlike the general understanding of politics, that the decrease in poltical apathy and the increase in political interest have its explanation in a spreading and prevalence of “special interests”, scarcity, manifoldness, specialization, and value-relativism, and in a loss of a common political “myth” in modern western societies. Although, the opposite explanation is often put forward, namely that “special interests” makes citizens losing interest in political issues – common concerns – and apathical turning its back. But, this explanation and definition of the concept of political interest, that sees special interests as “unpolitical” interests with limited political significance, risks doing established political institutions to ends in themselves. Thererfore, the explanation more or less contrasts the main idea of representative democracy, that is: politics is aimed at mirroring and reflecting society, and politic is a “mean”. In order to avoid doing established political instituions to Aristotelian ends in themselves, the paper is finally reformulating and clarifyinging a blend of new and old liberalistic ontology of political interest.

During recent years, there has been a major change in the way people engage in politics. The introduction of social media to the world, as well as the fact that the number of members of political parties has halved between 1990 and 2010, are part of a major shift in the study of political participation and engagement. This change shows that there has been a switch in political engagement, from the traditional representative democracy institutions to a much more digital way. Having taken this into consideration, this study aims to explore how young first-time Swedish voters experienced the political climate on social media during the Swedish general election in 2022. The focal point of this study is firstly to answer how the voters believe that the political climate on social media affected their political gathering of information ahead of the election. Secondly, to gain a deeper understanding of the students' opinions and experiences on politics in social media in relation to concepts like tolerance, freedom of speech, intolerance and censorship. And thirdly, if these experiences seem to influence the first-time voters' political participation and engagement on social media. The theoretical framework is foremost based on Henrik Bang’s theory on project-oriented identities, John Stuart Mill's understanding of freedom of speech and political scientist Sigal Ben-Porath’s definition on censorship. The method that will carry out this paper is face-to-face interviews with 10 upper secondary school students in a social science class in Orebro. The chosen method is content analysis, combined with an analysis scheme which will outline the empirical collection based on four main categories. The results show that the first-time voters did not use social media voluntarily for political information gathering, but that it rather happened because social media is part of their everyday life. The study also demonstrates that the first-time voters considered the political climate on social media as relatively harsh. Their opinions also vary regarding the political climate in relation to tolerance, freedom of speech, intolerance and censorship. Lastly, it was rather difficult to know with certainty whether the first-time voters’ experiences of the political climate had an impact on their political participation and engagement or not, but that it may possibly have been the case.

Young male vocational students are in academia described as being less interested by politics and social issues and having less knowledge regarding democracy than other students. A culture of resistance is the appellation of the specific culture that emphasise the relations between young male vocational students. Deliberately arranged teaching with deliberate qualities has shown a positive impact on students’ learning as well as being a way of working with moral issues in school. The purpose of this study is to make researches into whether deliberately arranged teaching has an impact on  the political and social interest amongst young male vocational students. A questionnaire was conducted before and after the Civics A (social studies) course. Individual interviews, where the students’ ways of expressing themselves in regards to politics and social issues were in focus, were carried out. The deliberately arranged teaching was conducted once a week during one academic year. The students were then responsible for the content as well as ensuring that they abided by the set rules for the conversation. Limited alterations regarding the students’ interest for politics and social issues were identified in the questionnaire. However, the interviews revealed that some of the students have changed their way of looking at politics and their interest has increased. The culture of resistance that usually distinguishes the behaviour of vocational students in regards to core subjects was not found as a dominating factor. The students taking part in focus groups expressed a positive response to the deliberately arranged teaching stating it was the part of the course they enjoyed the most. To be able to express their views and listen to others was highly appreciated by the students who described themselves as serious and ambitious during classes. The teachers felt that this teaching style meant that there was a focus on relations and that the didactic question about content in the course were more complicated to execute.

The general view among researchers is that a well-functioning democracy rests in the handsof the political behaviour of citizens. In this behaviour, political interest is one of thecornerstones. Thus, there are reasons to regard it as a threat to democracy when young peopletend to have ever-lower levels of political interest. Therefore, to know how interest couldincrease, there is a need to know where it comes from and why it differs. There is yetuncertainty regarding this, notably since political interest as a concept rarely is used as adependent variable. Consequently, this thesis was aimed to explain why political interestdiffers among upper-secondary school students in Sweden. The focus was on the two types ofnational programmes, political socialization and socio-economic background. The findings of survey data (N=398) suggest that the average youth has low levels of politicalinterest. As hypothesized, there are, on average, higher levels of political interest amongstudents in preparatory academic programmes compared to vocational programmes. Alonethough, this pattern cannot explain variations of interest. Instead, agents of politicalsocialization have strong explanatory power, in particular friends and media. Also, family dohave a direct effect on political interest. However, this relationship appears to be dependent onsocio-economic background. The school as a political socialization agent cannot explaindifferences in political interest.