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Organised use of e-democracy tools for young people.

Smith, Ella; Macintosh, Ann; Whyte, Angus

Authors

Ann Macintosh

Angus Whyte



Contributors

Maria Wimmer
Editor

Hans Scholl
Editor

�ke Gr�nlund
Editor

Kim Anderson
Editor

Abstract

This paper concerns use of an online policy debating forum: part of a suite of e-democracy tools for a local youth parliament. These e-democracy tools have been used and developed over the last 5 years and are vital to the parliament, as it serves a large rural area. The forum enables the involvement of all young people in the region in the youth parliament’s policy and decision making. This paper compares 2 debates for which use of the forum was organised and structured in local secondary schools. One of these debates took place in June 2004 and focussed on the age of electoral majority for the Scottish Parliament. The other, in February 2006, focused on smoking cessation schemes for teenagers. Results indicate that organising use within lesson time in schools is a very effective way to involve young people, both in terms of contributions to the debate and students’ perceptions of the experience. It also encouraged some people to get involved in their own time. These results are reflected in other research we have conducted into young people’s engagement in policy-making through e-democracy tools. Young people value the use of online tools, like the policy debating forum, to be involved in certain issues. However, they prefer to do this in an organised group, rather than under their own impetus. The paper discusses these results in light of investigations into young people’s engagement online and highlights what is to be gained from this approach.

Citation

Smith, E., Macintosh, A., & Whyte, A. (2006). Organised use of e-democracy tools for young people. In M. Wimmer, H. Scholl, Å. Grönlund, & K. Anderson (Eds.), Electronic Government: Communications of the Fifth International EGOV Conference 2006 (260-267)

Conference Name EGOV Conference 2006
Start Date Sep 4, 2006
End Date Sep 8, 2006
Publication Date 2006
Deposit Date Mar 19, 2010
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 4084
Pages 260-267
Book Title Electronic Government: Communications of the Fifth International EGOV Conference 2006
ISBN 978-3-540-37686-6
Keywords e-democracy; local youth parliament; policy debating forum; communication technologies; engagement;
Public URL http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/3704

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