Hackney Schools

Having not accomplished very much this week on the dissertation front (including a failed attempt to see someone at the Hackney Gazette) I finally pulled my finger out this morning and started sending requests to schools in Hackney that have a sixth form.

My aim obviously is to start getting the views of young people who will soon have their first opportunity to vote, as well as their teachers. So far, from what I can work out there are six schools which have a sixth form. These are Hackney Community College, The Bridge Academy, Cardinal Pole RC School, Our Lady’s Convent High School, Skinners’ Company’s School for Girls and Stoke Newington School. I’ve sent all of them an email, with the exception of Skinners’ whose email and website both seem to not be working at the moment, asking whether I can hand out some questionnaires.

Clearly students in sixth form are not necessarily going to represent the views of the entire age group but I their responses should give me some good insights in to where the minds of motivated and intelligent young people are on these issues.

HCVS Help

I forgot to mention the other day that Linda Smith did not ignore my correspondence but actually sent back some very useful comments which pretty much answered all of my questions regarding her thoughts on the potential of new media in political communication. I’ve also had a couple more questionnaires back from Team Hackney members and an offer of some extra help from the Hackney Council for Voluntary Service who might be able to get me in touch with more people to speak to. Obviously I’ve told them that all help is welcome so we’ll see where that leads.

Team Hackney Answers

We’ve been down in Brighton over the weekend celebrating one of my best’s mates birthday. Actually the celebrations started on Wednesday when we went to see Dave Matthews at Wembley Arena (my mate Dan’s a massive fan!). Anyway, meanwhile responses have come in from Team Hackney members Laura Sharpe and Steve Dann. At first glance they both seem to be remarkable positive about the potential of new media in political communication in particular when it comes to re-engaging young people with democracy. I still need a few more answers from politicians to make up my required sample but overall progress is being made.

Team Hackney (2)

I’ve had a two more replies from the Team Hackney members, namely from The Innovatory and from the business incubator Accelerator. I’ve also been sent and email by Councillor Linda Smith who seems to have disapproved of the questions I put in the questionnaire. I think it seems she hasn’t grasped the concept of new media and how it might change the way politicians and the public communicate with each other. Still, criticism is always good and possibly reflects a failure on my part to be totally clear about the motivation behind the project. I’ve emailed her back to try and better explain where I’m coming from. I wonder if she will reply or just ignore me now.

Team Hackney

I’ve spent a few hours this morning sending emails to all the organisations involved with Team Hackney. I’ve added a new link to their site in the general interest column down the right of the page. Essentially the organisation brings together a whole bunch of community stakeholders to help co-ordinate development and basically to make life in Hackney better.

A few good responses will certainly help to get a broader perspective on what stakeholders in the community feel about engaging young people in the political process and I’ve already received some positive replies. These have come from Chief Superintendent Steve Dann, who’s the Police Commander for Hackney Borough, Simon Thomsett from Hackney Empire and Laura Sharpe from the City & Hackney Teaching Primary Care Trust. I’ve sent them the questionnaire so now we’ll just have to wait and see.

Politicians on YouTube

An article by Maija Palmer on page 4 of today’s FT talks about research by the British Market Research Bureau which found that fewer than 5 per cent of people have watched any clips posted by political parties on YouTube.

The findings also showed that fewer than 2 per cent of internet users have watched Tony Blair’s clip which followed the French elections and less than 1.5 per cent have viewed any of David Cameron’s clips.

So, young people are not choosing to watch political clips on YouTube. No surprise there! Just because politicians use a new media that’s relevant to young people it doesn’t mean that you’re going to get immediate results.

It would be interesting to see the profiles of the few people who have seen the clips and how they have reacted to them. Has seeing them affected their thoughts on politics and politicians?

I would assume that most of the people who have been watching political clips on YouTube are journalist, party activists etc. But it will be interesting to see in the next 12 months if there is organic growth in the viewership and whether, if a really good clip gets made, whether a politician can produce a viral hit!

For the terms of my specific reserach it would be interesting to know how the national figures compare with people looking at clips about politicians or politcial issues in their local area adn whether using YouTube could be more effective at the local level

Widening Net

A couple of developments so far today. I’ve started to widen the net of my research by contacting Jane Young who edits Hackney Today. As the paper is the Council’s newsletter it certainly doesn’t fit in to the category of independent media. However, the team that work on the paper are very much involved in political communication in the Borough and so I’m sure their opinions on how new media can affect this will provide some interesting results. Anyway, Jane and I had a brief conversation on the phone and I have now sent her the questionnaire.

On the Councillors front, I have received another completed questionnaire from Sem Moema. I shall have to start looking at how I’m going to analyse and collate the data but that will be for another day. Despite the lovely weather, I have to get on with working on the EiA newsletter so dissertations will have to take a back seat.