Shaping Tomorrow's Voters: Amplifying Party Position Knowledge of Young Citizens via Voting Advice Applications

For a democracy to function optimally, citizens are expect to cast their votes in line with their policy preferences (Miller & Stokes, 1963). However, a significant impediment to informed voting lies in the lack of political knowledge, specifically Party Position Knowledge (PPK), leading to inaccuracies in voting among a substantial portion of the population (Lau & Redlawsk, 1997). Certain sociodemographic groups are particularly vulnerable to low levels of PPK. While studies document contradicting results on whether young citizens possess more or less PPK when compared to adults (Druckman, 2005; Weaver & Drew, 2001), enhancing PPK among young voters is a critical initial step in minimizing voting inaccuracies. Especially given that the formative years from early teens to early twenties are crucial for the development of ‘civic habits’ shaping political and civic engagement later in life (Delli Carpini, 2000). Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) present a tool to actively engage young citizens in politics. Popular in Western Europe, VAAs assist voters by comparing their personal opinions with the stances of political parties (Marschall & Garzia, 2014). Since many VAA users are under 30 (Marschall, 2014), exploring how VAAs can serve as a civic education tool to enhance the PPK of young citizens is crucial. Additionally, understanding how to adapt VAAs to maximize this political learning effect is equally important. Two adaptations are expected to increase the influence of VAAs on young citizens. First, adjusting the stylistic elements of political content to align with the preferences of young citizens can enhance the political learning effect. Increased aesthetic appeal captures attention and boosts salience, thereby increasing knowledge retention (Schmuck & Matthes, 2017). Second, simplifying the content itself is vital, as young citizens may often perceive political messages as too complex, due to a lack of the necessary prior knowledge. Reducing complexity facilitates better comprehension, thus leading to increased knowledge acquisition. We therefore expect that a VAA with simplified content and an enhanced aesthetic appeal will result in a larger influence on young citizens. Data collection will take place two weeks before the official release of the "Stemtest", the largest VAA in Flanders. Since experimental research on VAAs remains scarce (Exceptions are: Enyedi, 2016; Garry et al., 2019; Mahéo, 2016; Pianzola et al., 2019), we will employ a multi-wave pre-registered experiment which combines a between-subjects and within-subjects design. We aim to systematically assess knowledge gain effects of exposure to VAAs on PPK, comparing the impact of a standard VAA against one tailored specifically to youngsters (16-30 years old). Respondents (n = 1500) will be drawn from both a citizen and youth panel and will be randomly assigned to two experimental conditions (normal VAA and youth VAA) and one control group. In conclusion, our aim is to clarify the suitability of VAAs as a civic education tool for youngsters via experimentally assessing its causal relationship with PPK. Additionally, we seek to identify possible modifications of VAAs that will enhance this learning effect.