The research was undertaken last week by online pollsters YouGov, on behalf of the Citizenship Foundation. Almost 4,000 young people between 14 and 25 took part in the survey.

In answer to the question ‘How much, if at all, do you trust the following to tell the truth?’, journalists fared poorly. The scores for ‘little to no trust’ make worrying reading:

Or do they? Is it in fact reassuring that The Sun isn’t trusted by its vast readership, or that newspapers don’t necessarily hold as much sway over the public as maybe we believe?

Further information

• Survey results summary (pdf)
• Full survey results (pdf)

• Possibly related posts

  1. Young people don’t value the political power of social media, but they would vote
  2. WebAIM: Screen Reader Survey Results
  3. Would you like more digital engagement knowledge-sharing events?

A recent YouGov poll for the Citizenship Foundation interviewed almost 4,000 14-25 year-olds about their attitudes to political participation, politicians and power in the United Kingdom.

• The majority of respondents said they would be likely to vote, with 59 per cent seeing voting as the most useful way of participating in local or national politics.
• 32 per cent said they were knowledgeable about “the way that local and national government works”; of those, 71 per cent said the internet was a source of their news.
• 85 per cent had never joined a campaigning group in their local community (fairly consistent across the age ranges), and 50 per cent thought doing so would make no difference to the issues the tackle (also fairly consistent).
• 51 per cent had never joined a campaigning group on a social networking site, but 42 per cent had; however 65 per cent thought doing so would make no difference.
• 54 per cent said they would be more likely to vote if they could do so online.
• Email was seen as the most effective tool for making a political difference online. This doubles at the top end of the age bracket. Twitter scores very low and only increases fractionally with older respondents; although interestingly there is a significant spike among 16 year-olds (almost treble the score of younger age groups).

Further information

This post was originally published on the Citizenship Foundation Webmaster blog. The research was commissioned to mark the Citizenship Foundation’s 20th year.

• Press releases
• Download the survey results summary (pdf)
• Download the full survey results (pdf)

• Possibly related posts

  1. Young people see the media as powerful but don’t trust it: particularly not the tabloids
  2. Do organisations really need social media policies?
  3. Social media: peripheral impact measurement

Visit Futurelab Citizenship podcast

• Possibly related posts

  1. Using the internet for effective citizenship
  2. Education Eye – Mapping Innovations
  3. Young people don’t value the political power of social media, but they would vote