When the Whole World Watched Wisconsin: Young Citizens’ Responses to Contentious Politics

American protest in the contentious year 2011 began not in Manhattan but Madison, Wisconsin. That frigid Midwest February, thousands of people, many of them youth and young adults, marched and occupied the state capitol building in opposition to the governor’s attempts to withdraw union organizing rights and reduce the compensation of state employees, including those at the university. We propose to treat Wisconsin as a microcosm of a nation—even a world—in the grips of contentious politics, and examine how politics here have affected, and been affected by, young people coming of age in an era of economic malaise, growing wealth inequality, political polarization, and a revolutionizing communication system. It is a major question how such circumstances will affect the quantity and style of young citizens’ civic engagement; to address it, we examine three variables of special interest: young citizens’ social location (e.g., being a member of a working family, living in a rural or urban community), uses of mass media, and uses of social media. Our specific interest is in how relationships between these variables and political attitudes, talk, and engagement are changing. We bring a unique source of data to bear on the problem. From January through November 2012, Wisconsin-specific surveys were conducted on a regular basis. This period spanned a critical and contentious time for Wisconsin, and included both the unsuccessful attempt to recall the governor in June and the re-election of the President in November. The data allow us to test relationships between our key variables, as well as differences in how younger and older citizens reacted to the events of that crucial period. Our analyses will reveal how social-structural factors intersect with social communication practices—both interpersonal and mediated—to foster or inhibit youth activism and engagement during a period of intense social conflict.