Rhetorical Situation
The article titled “Youth-led activism and political engagement in New Zealand: A survey of Generation Zero” is published in Communication Research and Practice, an international scholarly journal that publishes research on the different aspects of communication. The authors are Giles Dodson and Evangelia Papoutsaki from the Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand. The article analyses the membership of Generation Zero, a youth-led environmental organization, to provide a “preliminary understanding of [its] demographic and political profile” (Dodson & Papoutsaki, 2017, p. 195). As the authors admit themselves, this choice of topic was due to the article being a part of a larger research project on the organization’s activism in New Zealand (Dodson & Papoutsaki, 2017). However, they also point out that their case study provides a better understanding of the hybrid and entrepreneurial political campaigning in New Zealand (Dodson & Papoutsaki, 2017). Thus, the intended audience of the article is not only those interested in environmental activism in New Zealand and, in particular, Generation Zero, but a broader group of readers interested in contemporary campaigning on the internet.
The authors aim to characterize the efficiency of Generation Zero’s online campaigning by analyzing the organization’s membership by several criteria. These include age, gender, income level, political engagements, media consumption, and others (Dodson & Papoutsaki, 2017). The authors collected the information via the electronic membership survey containing 22 questions, including check-boxes, Likert scale, and verbatim questions (Dodson & Papoutsaki, 2017). By securing the cooperation of Generation Zero, the authors were able to distribute the questionnaire through the organization’s customer management database (Dodson & Papoutsaki, 2017). All in all, 8148 members of the organization were invited to participate, and 8.5% of them agreed and provided answers, thus leaving the authors with a sample of 693 completed surveys (Dodson & Papoutsaki, 2017). Hence, the method employed in the article provided a fairly representative dataset to work with.
The results of the completed surveys suggest that the membership of Generation Zero is highly homogenous in multiple respects. It tends to have an income above the median, and almost three-quarters of the organization members are under 40 years of age (Dodson & Papoutsaki, 2017). They also demonstrate a higher-than-average degree of political involvement, measured by the vote enrolment, and are “overwhelmingly supportive of the Green Party” (Dodson & Papoutsaki, 2017, p. 202). As a result, the authors conclude that the current membership of Generation Zero is overwhelmingly concentrated in the urban educated middle class below 40. Consequently, Dodson and Papoutsaki (2017) conclude that the organization’s demographic focus is narrow, and it should seek a more diverse membership to broaden its appeal beyond the current activist core.
Research Conversation
The authors demonstrate that their work is firmly grounded in the previous research and connected to the many ongoing scholarly discussions. They refer to the recent scholarly works extensively when defining the basic terms used in the articles, such as “youth” and “political engagement” (Dodson & Papoutsaki, 2017, p. 196). This approach allows the authors to build credibility in the eyes of the audience by demonstrating their awareness of the current developments and debates in their chosen scholarly field. Apart from that, it also allows relating the research conducted for the article to broader issues, as in the examples outlined below.
One of the ways the authors engage in a conversation with previous research is entering the debate on youth political engagement. Dodson and Papoutsaki (2017) mention the assumption that “young people, in particular, are actively disengaged from politics,” but immediately point to the scholarly works that criticize and rebuke this claim (p. 197). The results obtained through the authors’ research also contradict the idea of youth being detached from political life and disinclined to participate in it. According to the article, 95.7% of the young membership of Generation Zero is enrolled to vote, as compared to the average 84.21% for this age group in New Zealand in general (Dodson & Papoutsaki, 2017). This data openly contradicts the notion that younger citizens of New Zealand are less inclined to participate in politics than their older counterparts and, thus, the article contributes to a broader discussion.
The article’s discussion of Generation Zero’s online campaigning enters a conversation with the previous research as well, as it relates to yet another debated issue. The authors note that according to one existing perspective, online political activism “may be displacing conventional forms of political engagement,” most notably among youth (Dodson & Papoutsaki, 2017, p. 198). They supplement this notion with ample references to scholarly literature, thus establishing it as a broadly debated issue. However, the results of the research demonstrate that Generation Zero urges its members to take part “in public political processes” as opposed to limiting themselves solely to online activities (Dodson & Papoutsaki, 2017). By doing so, Dodson and Papoutsaki (2017) put their findings in a conversation with the previous research, which allows them to go beyond announcing the results of the study. Instead, the authors put their findings and conclusion in the context of a larger scholarly debate regarding youth political participation and engagement as facilitated or impeded by online communication.
References
Dodson, G., & Papoutsaki, E. (2017). Youth-led activism and political engagement in New Zealand: A survey of Generation Zero. Communication Research and Practice, 3(2), 194-211.