Conference presentation by Gada and CaSMa that was given at the Connected Life 2016 conference in Oxford.

1. Online habits, attitudes, and needs
of civic engaged young people
Ansgar Koene
HORIZON Digital Economy Research,
University of Nottingham
Ayten El Kashef
Gada

2. The trouble with young people today …
“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of
exercise.” – (attributed to) Socrates

3. The trouble with young people today …

4. Teenagers’ engagement with social issues
and politics

5. Online civic-/political-engagement
eGovernment/mGovernment
eVoting
Open data
Arab Spring
LiquidDemocracy
Onine petitions
Social Media
discussion/action
groups

6. Barriers to youth civic engagement
Results from user research (phase 1)
2015/16

7. First things first:
Why
How?
What?

8. Barriers to youth civic engagement
• User research started in 2015
• May 2016  survey on modes, motivations and barriers to youth
civic engagement (107 responses)
• This presentation focuses on the barriers

9. Level of education
8%
57%
35%
Level of education (target group)
A-level
Undergraduate
Postgraduate
Target group: 18-25 year
olds
Survey respondents not
representative of target
group:
• Prevalence of highly
educated
• Most are currently in
education

10. Levels of engagement (sub-groups)
Engaged observers Outspoken netizens Active citizens
Main activity Seek and consume
information
Receive, share and discuss
information
Provide information on IRL
activities
Main motivation Understanding the
facts/personal growth
Raising awareness by
sharing content /discussing
Raising awareness and
gathering support for a
cause
Potential for
communication
Not outspoken Very opinionated on a range
of issues
Structured message along
organisation/party lines
Attitude Detached/intellectual
demeanor
Direct and persuasive
communication
Goal-oriented interaction

11. How do young people engage?
• Information  reading, posting and sharing of information from
various news sources
• Interaction  engaging in discussions with friends or issue-groups ,
opinion-forming
• Action  supporting or joining an activist group or a cause,
organising an activity

12. Main barriers to online civic information
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Lack of independent/objective information Overload of poor quality information
Active citizen Netizen Observer

13. Barriers to online interaction
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Discussions are dominated by uninformed opinions Discussions get personal and aggressive
Active citizen Netizen Observer

14. Main barriers to action
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Hard to know who to support Activists are too radical/partisian My involvement wouldn't make a difference Poor communication with activists
Active citizen Netizen Observer

15. Next steps

16. Please do not hesitate to get in touch for further information:
E-mail address: info@gada.org.uk
Website: www.gada.org.uk