Some may respond that, if they can't be bothered to go out and vote or read a newspaper, young people deserve to be on the political sidelines.
But evidence suggests that, even when young people respond to urgent political issues and demonstrate political convictions, neither the news media nor the political elite take them particularly seriously.
I studied UK national newspaper coverage of young anti-war protestors from 1 January to 31 April 2003 before the start of the Iraq war. While young protestors generated many headlines and stories, in the most popular newspapers these were overwhelmingly negative.
Editorial bias
In all UK national newspapers, just three in 10 stories featured positive representations of young protestors, while 43 per cent were negative.
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