What citizens want:How young citizens are behaving in the digital era and what parliamentarians need to know to respond

The 1st study "Learning to live with the Internt" reported the results of an investigation into how the technologically ‘early adopter’ set of Parliamentarians view, respond to and use new communications technologies. The analysis presented a tri-partite model of parliamentarians: the Representative, the Party Actor, and the Legislator, each role making use of ICT in a different way.

The 2nd study looks at things from the other side of the political fence – citizens, and in particular, young ones – the ‘beneficiaries’ or ‘victims’ of representation, party wooing and legislation. Here, the study presents a picture of how young people (and by their very nature, early adopters) are viewing and using technologies, and how they view and ‘do’ politics (or not).  Just as with the tri-partite nature of the parliamentarians, this study looks at three dimensions of our young citizens: consumers, social beings, and political actors.


The 1st study was designed to take things forward, by setting out user needs and recommendations to aid problem areas, and hence it included recommendations for individual parliamentarians and their Parliaments.

In the same vein, the recommendations set out in this 2nd study are designed for those politicians, parties and parliaments ready for a change, and reforming groups and individuals ready to support them. This study presents some of the most recent investigations into citizens, participation, politics, and online behaviour  and builds on some already presented broad recommendations for change - taking them to the next level. The study translates a broad reform agenda into a concrete set of actions which comply with, and hopefully move towards implementation of these very ‘global’ level recommendations.

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