The substantive representation of youth

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the underrepresentation of young people--those between 18 and 35--in national legislatures. Much of this work has focused on the descriptive representation of young people leaving questions of substantive representation underexplored. Some research, however, indicates that young people have distinct interests stemming from their age, generational belonging, and from the long-term future consequences of current and past policies (Parker and Igielnik, 2020; Parker, Graf and Iegielnik, 2019; Alter, 2020). Moreover, that young politicians may behave differently than their older counterparts once in office, creating policies that are different and potentially more advantageous to their younger constituents (McClean, forthcoming; Alter, 2020). These insights provide an impetus for expanding questions of youth substantive representation as many questions remain concerning the extent of youth substantive representation as well as the means by which it occurs. In this article we suggest that young politicians might utilize social media platforms such as Instagram, to contribute to the substantive representation of young people. We look specifically to Instagram as it is more popular among young people than other social media applications, and it is also more focused on images which may better convey a young representative’s status as young and the message they wish to convey. Following insights from scholars such as, Bennet (2015), who argue that social media is a part of youth culture we believe that young politicians may use this tool in authentic ways that lead to unique representational styles (O’Connell, 2018). Therefore, in this paper we ask if and how young politicians use Instagram to substantively represent young people? We utilize qualitative content analysis to analyse the substantive representational claims (Severs, 2012) made by young Belgian representatives and young party leaders on Instagram. We look specifically for the ways these young officials represent young people’s interests. We focus on the period from March 2019 through December 2020, as many new young politicians were campaigning for the first time, and more young politicians than ever before were elected in the federal parliament. Moreover, young party leaders played a significant role in government formation during this period. We see this research as having at least two contributions to the field of representational studies. First, it investigates a new and under examined political group, young people. Second, it opens new avenues for investigating how representatives may use digital technologies like Instagram to better represent their constituents. We hope that it furthers research interest into both areas.