A growing alienation of citizens from politics is a current challenge to many modern democracies. Citizen participation is vital for democracy and engaging citizens becomes a central question within political science. At the same time the use of voting advice applications (VAAs) has increased steadily, particularly popular among young voters. This increasing usage indicates that VAAs fulfil young people’s needs, but what these needs are is unknown. To analyse what functions VAAs have for young voters, this study utilises data from interviews with high school students conducted after the Swedish Elections 2022. Furthermore, research on VAAs has focused on some aspects of voting behaviour such as their impact on citizens’ likelihood to vote. Relatively under-researched remain questions concerning VAAs and other forms of latent engagement with politics, such as deliberation over politics. This thesis seeks to examine these behaviours associated with VAA-use addressing young citizens in particular. The study finds that young people use VAAs with serious intentions to find political guidance. Moreover, VAAs can trigger deliberation over politics, but mainly during the election campaign.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-495485 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Arvids, Matilda |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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