Research Overview for my Final Project at CIID Interaction Design Programme 2016. Topic: civic engagement and politics.

1. hello
research summary
Sep 22nd

2. motivationsmotivations

3. Portugal

4. 25 de Abril. Liberdade
April 25th 1974. Freedom
motivations

5. Voter turn out
rates over time
in Portugal
motivations
voters
turn-out
years
91,73%
1975 2015
55.84%

6. Similar trends
all over Europe

7. motivations
Brexit

8. motivationsinitial reflections

9. initial reflections
I’m interested in/
inspired by…
‣ Civic Participation and Education
‣ Politics
‣ Policy making
‣ Global vs. Localized decision making
‣ Citizen Data

10. initial reflections
Civic Participation
and agency
‣ How can we drive more civic participation?
‣ What services can we create / improve to bridge the gap between the
government and citizens?
‣ How can we give more agency to population and individuals to be drivers
of positive change? How can we make people feel empowered to make
things happen in their cities / countries?

11. initial reflections
Information
‣ How can we make people more interested and informed about the
decisions being made on their account by politicians?

12. initial reflections
New technologies +
governance
‣ What new ways of participation can technology bring us?
‣ What about new ways of communication between government and
citizens?
‣ New ways to be a citizen (ex. provide data in exchange for value)

13. initial reflections
‣ How can we drive people to be active citizens from a young age?
‣ How do we better educate youngsters about democracy and civic
participation?
Youth
If we drive participation from a young age more will
then grow to become active citizens as adults.

14. motivationsresearch overview

15. Understand the ways in which people
are involved in their communities and
in politics, as well as their underlying
motivations and barriers towards
civic participation.
research objective

16. system diagram

17. in-depth interviews

18. who i met
Taliah
15, UK
Zenia
13, DK
Joana
42, PT
Gonçalo
33, PT
Mandé
40, PT
Jessica
32, US
R.
28, PT
John Lynch
Expert, UK

19. motivationsresearch findings

20. A lot of our sources of
information are often filtered,
biased, incomplete or incorrect.
1 of 6
‣ Information Bias

21. This drives unsustained
opinions, not providing
people the means to
criticize or debate in
useful, meaningful ways.

22. supporting evidence
“You can filter people you
don’t want to listen to.
I don’t even see anyone
that I disagree with
anymore.”
Jessica
32, US

23. supporting evidence
“All of the media that I had consumed in the US my whole
life had such a ridiculous Pro-US filter, and I had no concept
of that before I left. (…) We only get half the story.”
Jessica
32, US
“I read the news with my critical senses alert. After working at
a communications agency I know how easy it is to get space
in the media. (…) People have no idea that the news they’re
seeing are in no way by chance.”
R.
28, PT
“There wasn’t one piece of information that didn’t contain a
mistake or that would tell the whole story!”
Joana
42, PT

24. Exposure to different opinions
and realities drives awareness,
empathy and tolerance.
2 of 6
‣ Exposure

25. “People like me, who
consider ourselves as open,
inclusive and tolerant
perhaps don’t know our
countries and societies as we
like to believe. (…) We’re in
this liberal bubble.”
Alexander Betts
Social Scientist
Why Brexit happened —
and what to do next
TED Talk

26. supporting evidence
“All you need to do is hear a story about someone who’s
struggling. Even though you’re not in that situation you can
imagine how bad they’ve got it”
Taliah
15, UK
“The regions more tolerant towards immigration are the ones
with higher number of immigrants.”
“It made me see things differently. Before it was just what my
parents told me. Now I have different perspectives, and my
own opinion. ”
Zenia
13, DK
Alexander B
Social Scientist

27. Global vs. Local
“At that moment I felt much more a citizen of the world than
I felt an American.”
Jessica
32, US
“I might feel closer to someone in the other side of the world
that has similar interests to mine, than I do to my next door
neighbour.”
Joana
42, PT

28. Clear, tangible and achievable goals
often keep people motivated while
participating in civic activities,
driving to more engaging and
memorable experiences.
3 of 6
‣ Clear tangible goals

29. “I wanted to be part of
something but in this
association there wasn’t a
clear goal to aim for, so I lost
interest and left”
Joana
42, PT
?
?
supporting evidence

30. supporting evidence
“You felt like you made a difference. That if you talked ti 1
person and they voted for him, then he could be elected.
You could see the results.”
“It was one of the first times I didn’t know how to contribute.
(…) In other experiences I was assigned a much more specific
task or I knew I had a skill to contribute. Here it was to vague.”
Jessica
32, US
Joana
42, PT

31. Individuals often get (re)engaged in
politics and civic life when something
is wrong, or when something they
perceive as bad happens.
4 of 6
‣ Reactive - Proactive

32. “I wasn’t engaged in politics
in a long time and what got
me engaged again was
Trump. Now more than ever I
feel like I should re-engage
because he’s so awful.”
Jessica
32, US

33. supporting evidence
“My sisters participate in a more reactive way, when
something happens that they feel is wrong they complain to
the right authorities and try to change things.”
“Certain catastrophic events also make me more aware and
empathize and want to engage with a certain community. (…)
I don’t get involved when I see something happy - that’s
probably bad.”
Jessica
32, US
R.
28, PT

34. People are often driven to participate
by those close to them, be it friends,
teachers or family, and more often
than not in very informal settings.
5 of 6
‣ Pre-existing networks

35. “Me and my friends, we
spur each other on. (…)
We’d be at the bus stop
arguing about our points
and sometimes these ladies
would join in and we’d have
a massive debate!”
Taliah
15, UK

36. supporting evidence
“All of my friends were democrats and one of them was
the president of the association so he dragged me along,
and I liked it so I stayed.”
Jessica
32, US
“Trying to create a community from scratch is really hard. It’s
best to find the ones close to what you’re trying to do and
leverage that.”
“It’s hard to mobilize people for an idea - it’s easier to start
with a group of friends who already have something in
common and go from there. Sometimes mobilization doesn’t
happen because people are too different.”
John Lynch
Expert, UK
Joana
42, PT

37. plugging into pre-existing networks

38. There’s often a disconnect between
different actors in the system.
6 of 6
‣ Disconnect

39. Joana
38, PT
Policy makers and those
who implement them
disconnect
“In the ministry you worry about
financing and getting policies
approved, but then you don’t get to
see how it is being applied. (…)
Later I worked for the place that
was applying what we had defined
and it was a bit of a
disappointment.”
R.
28, PT
“It was very theoretical, it lacked a more
grounded approach for students to understand
the relevance of all those big theories.”

40. Joana
38, PT
Municipality offerings
and it’s inhabitants
disconnect
“The parish is the closest thing to the population, and
still communication is a huge issue.
We do and offer much more to people than what they
actually know and take advantage of.”
R.
28, PT
There isn’t anything
happening in our city right
now. I don’t know why.
R.
28, PT
It’s only a small town where
I live, the council doesn’t
really do anything anyway…”

41. other observations
‣ Some young people are
eager to participate and feel
powerless and without a
voice.
‣ There seems to be a bias from
a large societal group towards
teenagers and their ability to
care and be informed.
‣ When engaged individuals get
more involved in official
channels they often become
highly disillusioned and end up
disengaging almost completely.

42. other observations
‣ Short spanned, highly intense
bursts of civic participation
seem to resonate highly with
the respondents.
‣ The connection between
money & politics seems to be
one of the bigger causes of
distrust and disillusionment.

43. next steps

44. expert interviews
Prof Martin Brynskov
Organicities
Peter Bjerregaard
Political Scientist
Sarah Drummond
Snook
Anders Frandsen
Public affairs / com.

45. other contacts
Inger Rasmussen
Design Teacher
Ask Harsløf
SFU Copenhagen

47. thank
you