Political participation in the UK..Albert & Charlotte

• What is political participation?

-Huntington & Nelson (1976: 3): "By political participation we mean activity by private citizens designed to influence government decision-making.”

-Verba et al. (1995: 38): "By political participation we refer simply to activity that has the intent or effect of influencing government action – either directly by affecting the making or implementation of public policy or indirectly by influencing the selection of people who make those policies."

Offline & traditional political participation..

Examples of traditional participation:• Protesting / demonstrating• Attending MP surgery• Signing a petition• Joining a pressure group• Attending parliamentary session

Traditional methods of political participation are quickly declining:• Joining political parties – 2010, just 1% UK electorate now have

full party memberships (1950s: Conservatives nearly 3 million members, Labor more than 1 million members)

• Voting in elections* – Very low turnout since 1997 (59.4% in 2001 = the lowest since 1918)

New Media: online political participation..

General use of internet in the UK seen a huge increase, of course:• 2006 = 16million adults going online everyday• 2012 = 33million adults going online everydayUK internet users:• 2011 = 45.5million & 72.6% of the population• 2013 = 48million & 75.7% of the population

Example:• In the first year of UK e-petitions, the site was visited 17million

times (46,500 times a day) and gathered 6.4million signatures.

• New Media: effect on political participation..

In 2007, Estonian parliamentary and European elections took place online:• Internet voting did not result in a higher

turnout• However, did result in lower transaction costs

and increased efficiency

How New Media can alter politcal participation?

Who are the online activists?

Examinating demographic and socioeconomic datas from a study by Oxford Internet Survey (oxIS) of the Internet adoption and use in Britain in 2005.

• There is no significant difference in term of gender, and but it tends spread more over men.

• More than a half of people from lower socioeconomic grades have ever engaged in any king of political participation.

• Even if younger people are higher Internet users, older people use it more in term of politic activism

• More likely to be a young male, better educated and well off.

How to explain these inequalities?

• Inequal access to new media

• Feeling that they have a lack off knowledge over politics concerns.

• Low self-efficiencly evaluation of their skills (novice users, middle range users, veterans users)

• Younger are under-represented in online participation: do not trust in political parties and politician (in 2011 only 7% said to have some or great deal of trust in politician)

Offline and Online activism

• Online participation tends to reproduce the same inequalities as in offline participation.

• ‘Digital divide’= social inequalities of access to Internet

• According to Gibson and his colleagues ‘online and offline participation tend to reinforce each other but enable increase participation at the margins’

• New media can envolve new people: 1/3 of people are only engaged in online activism: new media can attract new people.

Young people, the new challenge for politician

• Young people does not trust politician= 66% do not think UK government to be honest and trustworthy.

• They think politician do not care about them

• Do not believe in politicians effectiveness

• Want to participate to political life