Giving a Voice to the ‘Hard to Hear’ - Informing Digital Futures: Strategies for Citizen Engagement - page 87

5.3.3 'Logged Off' - Political Disaffection Amongst Young
People - UK

'Logged Off' was a project commissioned by the Carnegie Trust to estab-
lish whether new technologies could encourage greater participation in
political life of young people (aged from 13-18). Previous studies showed
that young people are becoming increasingly disengaged from participat-
ing in mainstream politics. This is exemplified by the finding that for the
local government elections in 2002, total voter turnout was only 40%, with
the lowest turnout of all occurring in the 18-25 year age group.
The Carnegie Trust sponsors research and educational programmes to
enable young people to feel that they have more control over their lives
and to take action. For this project, the Trust carried out quantitative

research involving young people between the ages of 13 and 18. The
Carnegie Young People Initiative established contact with young people

through its Participation Workers Network for England. Participation
workers set up events on a regional basis, working closely with the Clubs
for Young People Initiative. The research was carried out through face to
face interviews. A special website was set up asking participants to
comment on a range of websites, and to search for political information
and opportunities to interact. Participants were able to read comments
made by their peers and respond to different points of view. Researchers
sought to establish how young people reacted to information presented on
the website, how they interacted with websites, and whether the content of
the sites changed their views (Carnegie Young People Initiative 2003).
In its final report on the research, the Trust was able to recommend that
in the short term:
• the Government should commit itself to develop effective strategies, in-
cluding the use of ICTs, to engage young people;
• the Government should fund development of a toolkit which would en-
able anyone with interest in engaging young people's political engage-
ment to develop a successful ICT strategy;
• the Government should establish NET:ENGAGE throughout UK - a
network of young people who could evaluate ICT initiatives aimed at
engaging young people;
• all government websites should include at least one page aimed specifi-
cally at young people;
• in order to achieve this, government should run an annual, national
competition inviting young people to design these web pages;
• the Government should extend its examples of producing versions of
consultation designed specifically for young people;