How to Attract Youth: An Analysis of the Czech and German General Elections 2013

In this paper, we analyze on-line social networks and political issues, that are used to attract young adults during electoral campaigns. A lot of studies and surveys show young adults are not interested in politics and that is the reason why their turnout is lower compared to turnout of the rest of population. This problem is discussed in many democratic states on many levels, from political elites to academics. Therefore, we direct our attention to this issue and try to find out how political parties focused on young voters and what political issues they delivered them. The analysis focuses on parliamentary election in the Czech Republic and Germany in 2013. We conduct qualitative content analysis of programs of the most successful parties (achieved MP's) – six parties in Germany and eight in the Czech Republic. We analyze campaigns as well. The usage of new marketing techniques, unusual or original advertising formats and modern technology such as online social networks, is supposed to increase interest in politics among young adults and hence their turnout. Therefore, we identify emphasized issues (connected to young adults). We analyzed how important were these issues in communication of parties on Facebook and Twitter. We distinguish marketing tools or strategies used to attract these voters and to deliver a message. We make quantitative and qualitative analysis of communication and issues. Finally, we compare results in the Czech Republic and Germany (and among parties as well) to find out which political issues were supposed to be the most important in communication, how parties tried to attract young voters and which tools, channels and issues they used.