Young Voters and Access to

Young Voters and Access to Information Young Voters Access to Information The topic of this research paper has to do with how younger voters get their information on voting in order to make informed decisions. The reason this topic was chosen is because our youth make up a large percentage of the population and soon they will be the ones responsible for running this country. How they vote and how they get their information to decide how to vote is of importance.

It is assumed that the youth of today do not take issues as seriously as their parents or even grandparents because they are now enjoying many of the benefits that previous generations fought hard for. Even though we are now battling many different issues, such as global warming, we will need the vote of the younger generation to prepare for a better future. The specific hypothesis that will be tested for this research is: Young voters do not get their voting information from media outlets such as the evening news.

Their access to voting information comes largely from such cable television stations such as MTV and other similar media outlets where popular rocks stars, rappers, actors and even reality television stars give messages when it is close to time to vote. When the word 'young' is used in this research, the reference is to adults between the ages of eighteen (18) and thirty (30) years of age. The research methods used to test the hypothesis will be focus groups and surveys.

Several small focus groups will be conducted instead of one large one to gain a better overall feel for the information sought. The survey will consist of Likert scale questions, true/false questions and open-ended questions which allow the survey taking to write in his response. The participants will be chosen through colleges and universities throughout the city with traditional programs as well as programs for adult learners, up to and including the age of thirty (30). The nonprobability sampling approach will be used for this research project.

Convenience sampling is a method of nonprobability sampling and will be used because it is inexpensive and convenient for this purpose. Instead of trying to determine where the highest concentration of eighteen to thirty-year-olds are, we will use the convenience of the local colleges and universities where we know there is a large population among this age group that we are seeking.

From this first method of sampling, we can then use the snowball method of sampling and rely on the referrals of our first group of students who can possible point us to people they know in the same age group, but that are not necessarily college students. The surveys and focus groups as well as the nonprobability sampling methods were chosen because they appear to be the best approach at getting a good representation of the group we are seeking.

An advantage to the focus group is that the participants will be among their peers, but this can also work against us as some may not agree with the general consensus of the focus group yet go along in order to fit in. The advantage of the surveys is that they are anonymous so the participants can answer the questions.