Title
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Going online : does ICT enabled-participation engage the young in local governance?
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Author
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Abstract
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Local governments increasingly use online strategies to strengthen political participation of citizens in policy and politics. Young people, however, are generally under-represented. This article studies age patterns of participation across offline and online forms of action to test whether online initiatives are able to overcome this age bias. We first report a case study of online and offline problem reporting to local authorities. We find that simply going from offline to online participation reinforces rather than mitigates age bias. We then report a case study of message posting on an online political forum. In this case, age bias disappears. In contrast to the traditional instrumental modes, a forum is an expressive form of online participation. The young seem to value the act of participating over the outcomes of participation. For practice, these findings suggest a need for participation policies that speak to these expressive needs of young. In recent years, social media have reinforced the potential for expressive participation. |
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Language
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English
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Source (journal)
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Local government studies. - London
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Publication
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London
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2016
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ISSN
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0300-3930
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DOI
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10.1080/03003930.2016.1189413
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Volume/pages
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(2016)
, p. 1-21
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ISI
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000381315200010
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Full text (Publisher's DOI)
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Full text (open access)
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Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
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