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Democracy Untenable, says Election-savvy Reality TV Generation
Big Brother, Survivor and other reality televisions shows are widely considered a blight on Western civilisation and a symptom of serious cultural decline a la Marcuse. But new research suggests young people who have fallen victim to the vacuous eye-candy have been inadvertently schooled in one area of relevance to civic life: namely matters related to the ballot. The vote. Election.
A study conducted by Hun and Backstreet and released just today tested the ability of thousands of people between the ages and 18 and 34 on their understanding of various systems of voting and ballots and the power relationships that tend to develop around these institutional arrangements. When the issue of Australia's political system was briefly detailed for the incredulous research respondents many were found to be able to critically analyse the Westminster system despite having previously professed complete ignorance of it and all that it entails. Scathing reviews of Australia's so-called 'Democratic' system of Government could now become the beach-head of a movement for significant change.
Whether the text message and 'eviction' method used in the popular, cheesy reality TV shows will rapidly replace Australia's creaky 'Westminster-style' liberal democracy is as yet undecided. What is certain is that a choice of only two possible winners election after election is neither entertaining television nor any choice at all. And it's increasingly obvious that the level of interactivity involved in a general election once every few years is unsatisfactory for a generation of young voters that has grown accustomed to the swift and surgical removal of the most obnoxious and the unpopular from public view.
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