Advocating Public Advocacy

When I was deciding what to blog about, I used a search engine to see what kind of celebrity civic engagement and public advocacy was recently in the news. I found an interesting article on the Washington State University website that fits very well with the topics of public advocacy and civic engagement. The title of the article is "WSU Researchers Find That Celebrity Endorsements Motivate Younger Voters." As I'm sure you can guess, it focuses on the impact celebrities have on many areas of young adults lives, even into the realm of voting. History has shown that voters, ages 18-24, have very little interest in voting and have the lowest turnout on election day of any age group. Between 1990 and 2000, attendance of voters this age hit an all time low, but in 2004 the statistics rose drastically. Research suggests that this is due to the celebrity GOTV (get-out-the-vote) campaign. One of the researchers makes this claim, "The results suggest that celebrity involvement in the promotion of civic engagement can have potentially positive effects that have both short-term and long-term benefits for the larger community"

As American citizens voting is a part of our civic engagement responsibilities, which is why this article was a "hit" in my search engine. At first I didn't think this would work because voting is not the type of civic engagement we are dealing with in public speech. As I read deeper into the article, though, I was able to draw out some facts that I found really exciting. Part of the GOTV campaign is a non-profit organization called "Declare Yourself." This organization toured college campuses promoting civic engagement (mainly voting but also community volunteering and personal political involvement) with famous speakers and singers. In affiliation, Christina Aguilera even launched "Declare Yourself Yahoo" which is an online voting registration drive. What is so interesting about all this is that in promoting civic engagement, the celebrities themselves were demonstrating that exact practice. Their exigence was the lack of civic engagement in young adults. This concerning fact caused them to speak out about this issue in appropriate environments. They traveled to colleges and universities so they could reach the audience that needed to hear that particular message. They would then publicly speak about the issue and influence the students to make a change. It worked, and in 2004 (when this campaign began) 44% of new voters were of the 18-24 age group and 43% reported that they expected to stay involved in the political process.

I love this example of celebrity public advocacy and civic engagement in promoting those very concepts. It just goes to show how truly surrounded by these ideas and also by the need for public speech we are. It helped me to realize just how important the skills we are currently learning will be for the rest of our lives.