Exploring young voter engagement and journey mapping across political events

Abstract

This interdisciplinary study aims to explore the lived experiences and engagement of young voters from a customer journey perspective. To achieve this, the present study investigates voter engagement journey with various political events (2015 UK General Election, 2016 UK-EU Referendum, 2017 UK General Election and future elections). The authors collected data via phenomenological in-depth interviews with young voters 18–24 years. The results show different engagement journeys and touchpoints. In particular, the findings reveal that (1) young voters were not apathetic of politics as long as they could identify the personal impact of political issues-policies (i.e., sticky customer journey); (2) the ‘voter journey’ is dynamic resulting in stronger engagement yet limited long-term party loyalty; and (3) voters used multiple touchpoints to engage with the political process combining media, voter-led research and interactions with personal networks and political stakeholders (online and off-line). This study puts forward the voter engagement and journey mapping framework which represents a mechanism for researchers and practitioners to gain access into the hidden world of the voter journey and periodically explore levels of engagement across political events. To our knowledge, this is the first study examining customer journeys in a political context and provides insights for political campaign managers to effectively improve voters’ engagement.