PhD Bianca Mitu University of Bucharest POLITICAL ATTITUDES AND YOUNG PEOPLES’ ONLINE ELECTORAL BEHAVIOR

HOW DID IT START? The lack of political interest and participation Protests/social movements have moved online

MAIN OBJECTIVES To explore peoples’ feelings towards democracy and civic engagement To identify the main activity that people choose in order to make their opinions visible To identify peoples’ motivating and de-motivating factors To survey the participations’ patterns of Internet use, including their levels of online civic engagement and explore how their civic attitudes translate into specific online preferences and expectations from different websites that provide civic content.

ASSUMPTION The core argument is that people are willing to engage with public affairs via different websites as long as a series of “terms and conditions” are met that would make this engagement meaningful to them. The lack of visibility of Romanian NGOs leads to a lack of trust and compromises peoples’ desire to engage in civic activities

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND/MAIN CONCEPTS Normative Theories of Media (social responsibility theory) Public Sphere Theories Civil Society Democracy - Models of civic engagement in a representative democracy

THE IMPORTANCE OF DEMOCRACY

YOUNG PEOPLES SOURCES OF INFORMATION

YOUNG PEOPLES USE OF INTERNET

YOUNG PEOPLES REASONS FOR USING THE INTERNET

PARTICIPATION TO THE LAST ELECTIONS

ACCESSING THE CIVIC WEBSITES

REASONS FOR ENGAGEMENT

REASONS FOR NOT ENGAGING

RESULTS 99% use the Internet as a main source of information Only 36% believe that democracy is very important 69% participated to the last political elections but only 31% consider that they are well-informed

Motivating factors: -If they could see the results -If more people were involved -For financial reasons -If they were interested in the activity De-motivating factors: - Lack of time -Lack of trust -Lack of information -They do not believe that their implication will matter RESULTS

CONCLUSIONS Internet offers a great potential for political and civic engagement. The NGOs are not exploring this potential. The Romanian NGO websites lack of elements that could imply the citizens. Young peoples lack of engagement is increasing in post- communist Romania because of the lack of trust in the Romanian NGO honesty, efficiency or in the fact that their actions are not relevant for society. The use of the civic websites is based on efficiency of the information provided by the website

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