How to Livestream the Democratic National Convention on Social Media

Hey, democracy enthusiast: the Democratic National Convention is taking place next week, and it will be live-streamed vertically. For the first time, TikTok-, Instagram-, and YouTube-Americans can join horizontally streaming Americans on old-fashioned platforms like Apple TV and Roku.

When and where to watch the Democratic National Convention

The DNC will take place from August 19 to 22 in Chicago. Primetime convention coverage will stream live from 6:30 to 11 pm ET on Monday and 7 to 11 pm ET Tuesday through Thursday.

The convention will be streamed on over a dozen platforms, including YouTube, DirecTV, Facebook, and Comcast. You can find links to the full list of platforms on the convention's official site.

Why does vertical streaming matter?

Streaming in a different orientation isn't an aesthetic choice from the Democratic Party; it's an attempt to connect with the young voters. Tight polling means the 2024 presidential race could be decided by the votes of young people, a growing force in American politics. In 2020, 55% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 voted, the highest percentage since 1972, the first election in which 18-year-olds were even eligible to vote.

Increasingly, younger potential voters are getting their information from vertically streaming video platform TikTok. According to the Pew Research Center, 32% of Americans between 18 and 29 said they got their news from TikTok in 2023, up from 9% in 2020.

In the past, political conventions have been for older people

Whether making the Democratic National Convention available to stream on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube will make a difference at the ballot box remains to be seen. In the past, young people haven't shown much interest in political conventions: In 2020, a year with historically high youth voter turnout, around 14 million people who were over 55 tuned into the DNC, but only about 1 million people between the ages of 18 and 34 gave it a watch.