eyag-report-december-2013

Media and Young Citizens'
Engagement in the EU
FINAL REPORT
EAVI - DECEMBER 2013
Edited by Alessandro Papes
and Kristina Stoycheva

Media and Young Citizens'
Engagement in the EU
FINAL REPORT
EAVI - DECEMBER 2013
Edited by Alessandro Papes
and Kristina Stoycheva
CONTACT DETAILS:
European Association for Viewers’ Interests
Rond Point Schuman 9/16
1040 Brussels – Belgium
Website: www.eavi.eu
E-mail: eavi@eavi.eu
Tel. +32 (0)2 230 3006

Media and Young Citizens' Engagement in the EU – EAVI/EYAG - Brussels 2013
3
Table of contents
Acknowledgement...........................................................................................................................4
1. Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................5
2. Context and Background.............................................................................................................8
3. Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 10
4. Survey Results.......................................................................................................................... 12
4.1. Youth and the Media........................................................................................................... 13
4.1.1 Which Media? ............................................................................................................... 14
4.1.2 Time young people spend on different media................................................................ 15
4.1.3 Media content reliability................................................................................................. 16
4.2. Political activity and the EU ................................................................................................ 20
4.2.1. Which activities? .......................................................................................................... 20
4.2.2 Focus on national or EU politics.................................................................................... 21
4.2.3 Willingness to participate .............................................................................................. 23
5. Some conclusions..................................................................................................................... 25
5.1. Media and Communication/information ........................................................................... 26
5.2. Education........................................................................................................................ 28
5.3. Participation tools............................................................................................................ 29
5.4. Building a European identity............................................................................................ 30
Appendices................................................................................................................................... 32
Appendix 1 Online Questionnaire .............................................................................................. 32
Appendix 2 Online survey dissemination: Formal letter ............................................................. 36
Take part in a Europe-wide survey, exploring young people's attitudes and ideas about the EU,
media and citizenship!............................................................................................................... 36
Appendix 3 Online survey dissemination: Informal letter............................................................ 37
References ................................................................................................................................... 38

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Acknowledgement
This is the place to say a big “Thank you!” to all EYAG members for the great assistance they
rendered us in the survey dissemination. For the short period of time we had they were very
actively involved in gathering participants. Thus, their help made it possible to collect a
significant number of respondents for our questionnaire.
We would also like to express our deep gratitude for the immense contribution of Barbora
Adlerova, Rui Andre, Klaudia Chlopas, Roberto Gatto, Simona Giagnoni, Maria
Grozdanova, Laura Halonen, Martina Herkova, Lubica Mlynarcikova, Patricija Pavlova,
Valeria Pini, Natalia Lopez Puertas, Evelin Schilder, Giulia Sci, Ana Catarina Silva, Mathias
Szilvasi, Matus Tomecko, Zymante Trakelyte, Nicoleta Ursescu and Alice Wilson.
These EYAG members did a great job recording video interviews with young people across
Europe and/or helping us with the analyses of the survey results obtained from their countries.
Their efforts provided us with a rich set of qualitative data as well as a more in-depth view of
the results we got from the survey in their respective EU countries.
Soon new initiatives. Stay tuned!
Visit the EYAG website
Visit the EAVI website

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1. Executive Summary
Young people make up around 20% of the entire population of the EU; in numbers we are
talking about 100 million people. It represents a large portion of the population which is often
neglected by the EU. Notwithstanding the rhetoric, the level of attention young people receive
from the EU institutions is insufficient to grant their active involvement in political life.
Trustworthy information seems lacking, as media are not used appropriately. Young people
perceive the current situation as inadequate. On the other hand they state that they would be
ready to participate and fully contribute if they would be given the opportunity.
This discrepancy is easy to observe with the 2014 European Parliament elections approaching.
Young people are often ignored in this context, mainly as a result from their low voting activities
(in 2009 elections 65% did not vote)1. As a consequence, political parties do not feel it is
important to target them in their campaigns. In the rare instances they do, they usually do not
offer specific policies that are relevant for the European youth. Furthermore, EU institutions
have been quite unsuccessful in recognizing that young people are not disengaged from politics.
Rather parties have failed to recognize the forms of activism they prefer to and the new media
they use to get involved with politics. This, in turn, creates a general feeling of exclusion from
EU affairs among the young people.
Although the scope of our research is limited, it confirms previous investigations in the field. At
EAVI and our EYAG people are convinced that the EU should improve their communication
strategy, plan effective initiatives and promote those existing tools at EU level aimed to enhance
political participation.
There is not any reason or excuse to ignore that young people are decision-makers of upmost
importance. Whether politicians will recognize they are the ones to forge European future or
not have its respective consequences. The risk is to lose a generation of citizens. The
opportunity is to re-conquer them for a better Europe.
This study was carried out by the European Association for Viewers’ Interests (EAVI) in close
collaboration with EYAG, its Youth Advisory Group. Its objective was to get an understanding
of young European citizens’ perceptions in the European Union.
A special reference was made to the opportunities, currently at their disposal, to influence - and
participate in - the EU decision-making process and show how young people see Europe and its
politics changed in the future.
The study therefore focuses, in particular, on the youth relationship with the media as a prime
information and participation tool. As a not for profit organization working in the fields of
media literacy and active citizenship, EAVI is attentive about the extent to which media
1 http://www.youthforum.org/assets/2014/02/YFJ-LYV_StudyOnYouthAbsenteeism_WEB.pdf

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influences political participation of young people, the ways media are used and the extent they
are trusted.
By ‘political participation’ we mean the set of activities, aimed at influencing government action
- directly or indirectly2. This is why we investigated the active political engagement of the youth
by asking how knowledgeable they perceive themselves to be about political matters and how
they use different media with respect to these matters.
In order to obtain indicative (although not necessarily statistically representative) data to shed
light on the above-listed issues, a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methodologies was
used in our research. An online survey and face-to-face interviews were carried out across
Europe from August to December 2013. For the purposes of this research, only people in the
age range of 18-35 took part in it. Despite the short period, we are proud we were able to gather
1308 respondents in our survey and record 29 video interviews. These numbers
translated in rich and extensive amount of information, which needed to be processed.
By doing so, we revealed several key observations, which gave us the ground to cautiously draw
a number of conclusions. To anticipate you but a few of them, our study clearly demonstrated
that young people, often labeled as apathetic, are instead very interested in being more engaged
and want to have more chances to influence the decisions taken at European level.
Furthermore, young people do not necessarily perceive information contained in social
networks as credible enough, despite using them a lot. Moreover, young people prefer to choose
new forms of political participation (especially via Internet) or modify the existing ones (e.g.
signing on-line petitions) that make them feel they influence decision-making more directly and
efficiently.
The study was carried out in the framework of the “Europe for Citizens Programme”3 of the
European Commission. The aim of this program is to make EU citizens feel part of a greater
whole by giving them the opportunity to participate in building this greater community. This
objective is in line with what EAVI has been working on since its establishment in 2005, namely
to promote citizens’ interests among EU decision-makers. Therefore, we took the opportunity
2 http://global.oup.com/uk/orc/politics/comparative/caramani2e/01student/additional/ch18/01/
3 The “Europe for Citizens Program” aims at funding projects run by local authorities, non-governmental
organizations, think tanks, universities etc., which focus on promoting Europe's common values and history,
looking for ways to enhance the knowledge of what it means to be a European and developing ideas and activities,
which foster a European identity. More info here: http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/citizenship./index_en.php

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provided by ‘’Europe for Citizens’’ to investigate the relationship between the EU youth and the
EU in light of the role media plays in shaping them as active citizens and decision-makers.
In the remainder of this paper we provide the reader with some background information of the
rationale behind EAVI's study, the methodology used for its implementation and the results
obtained from the data collected. We conclude this report by discussing the key findings of our
study and providing a set of recommendations to the EU institutions for further actions.
Additionally, we integrated some of the best young people’s ideas collected from the interviews
and the survey’s open question.
The study focuses on the following issues:
• Young people’s use of the media: which types of media do they prefer and how often do they
use them
• Young people’s trust in the information provided by different media, with a special attention
on information regarding politicians and political parties
• Young people’s awareness of the EU, including European identity, rights and opportunities
granted by the European citizenship
• Young people’s interest and desire to participate in politics, including e-participation and
online activism
• Young people’s opinions and suggestions about their current opportunities to participate in
and influence the decision-making processes at European level
• Young people’s desires on how Europe should look like in the next future

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2. Context and Background
What it is relevant for this study is that, both at national and European level, young people are
often not well represented and their manifestations are not always taken into proper account.
The average age of the European Parliamentarians is 53 years old4, meanwhile the average age
of the European Union population is 41 years old5. Moreover, as shown in numerous studies6
and demonstrated by the emergence of new movements like “Occupy” and “Indignados” and
political parties like, for example, the Italian “Movimento5stelle” and the German
“Piratenpartei”, there is an increasing demand by citizens to be more engaged in the decision-
making processes. Common claims of these movements are for a stronger presence of young
people in representative bodies and the use of Internet to promote citizens’ right to vote and
opinion7.
This must interest the European Union’s8 governance, since its Treaties9 stipulate that it shall
encourage the participation of young people in democratic life and the EU Youth Strategy10
underlines the need to support young people’s participation in representative democracy and
civil society. Moreover, 2013 is the “European Year of Citizens”, the year dedicated by the EU
Institutions to foster citizens’ awareness of the rights that come with EU citizenship, including
the possibility to vote in the European Parliament elections in May 2014, and build a vision on
how Europe should be in 202011.
This is why, an investigation into the attitudes and desires of young citizens across all EU
countries was needed to contribute to cast some light on the current situation and map
issues that need to be tackled at EU level.
4 Global Parliamentary Report, 2012 – Greg Power
5 Demographic Outlook, Eurostat 2012
6 Political Participation and EU Citizenship – Evidence from Eurobarometer surveys
http://ec.europa.eu/youth/documents/report_on_political_participation_and_eu_citizenship.pdf
7 http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/research/academicgroups/equality/forumyouthparticipation/keyfindings/
findings2011/Sloam_Voice_Equality_Youth2013.pdf
8 Flash Eurobarometer 375, pag.2 - May 2013
9 Article 165 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2008:115:0047:0199:en:PDF
10 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2009:0200:FIN:EN:PDF
11 For more info about the European Year of Citizens visit the website: http://europa.eu/citizens-2013/en

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Progress in this direction is crucial, since the competences and the influence of the EU have
increased much faster than the involvement of the public in the decision-making processes. The
digital era we live in, however, offers us a great opportunity to bridge this gap and help EU
citizens catch up with the union affairs. Media, indeed, offer a medium accessible from
everywhere and able to amplify citizens’ voices and facilitate their involvement in the
democratic process.
As an independent, international non-governmental organization EAVI aims at representing
and advancing the interests of European media users and citizens. It recognizes that we live in
diverse societies, where mutual understanding is vital to safeguarding democracy. Such
understanding is generated to a great extent by knowledge, which is more often than ever
before in human history transmitted by media. Therefore, having knowledgeable media users
is crucial for forging rapport across the EU and creating the right environment for active
citizenship and civic participation to flourish.
At the same time we should keep in mind that we live in a world where new media are more
pervasive than ever before in human history. This fact has its consequences in the ways people
acquire knowledge and exercise their rights as European citizens. It is even more so for young
people, who are the most avid users of new media. There is an on-going debate about whether
young people are indeed ‘digital natives’ to new media or instead their abilities are somewhat
overrated and limited to (just) technical skills12.
A more in-depth research into the influence media have over young Europeans’
involvement with politics is crucial for guaranteeing these generations are not left
behind when important decisions about the future of the EU are taken.
12 http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/27739/1/Digital_natives_(LSERO).pdf

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3. Methodology
This study used a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methodologies to collect data among
a target group of people between 18 and 35 years old13, residents in all EU member states. The
qualitative method included video interviews, which were recorded by the members of EAVI’s
Youth Advisory Group in the countries their respective residents at the moment. Quantitative
data was collected through an online survey, developed by EAVI and beating the same area of
questions, but in more details than the video interviews.
Face-to-face interviews were carried out in 13 EU countries14 from August to December 2013
to investigate some aspects of youth perception of the European Union and collect ideas to
make a better Europe. Topics of European identity, European integration, citizens’ participation
and the impact that media can have in citizens’ engagement within the EU institutions were
discussed. All the interviews have been recorded and the videos are available on the EAVI’s
YouTube channel15.
A European-wide online survey was conducted in the period from November to December
2013, in order to assess the state of media usage and trust of young people and shed light on
their civic engagement within the EU institutions. Accidental sampling was used to recruit
participants for the survey, which has been completed online by more than 1300 persons.
Its original English version was assembled by the EAVI team and consists of 20 items (Appendix
1). Subsequently, it was translated into Italian, Czech and Slovak by the EYAG members from
the respective countries. The first 19 items were close-ended, multiple choice questions, while
the last one was open-ended and gave participants the freedom to express their opinions in
13 The minimum age was chosen in reference to the voting age in most European Countries. The maximum
age of 35 was chosen taking in consideration the crisis context and the increasing dependency of young
people from their parents.
14 Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal,
Slovakia, Spain, Uk
15 http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3cjO_EtKN4ivHjF9X2YUGdjArr11Yu5a

11
text. The questions were divided into three main sections: socio-demographic (4 questions),
media use and trust (6 questions) and political activity (10 questions).
The questionnaire was disseminated with the joint efforts of the EAVI team and EYAG members
through two main communication channels: e-mail and Facebook. To disseminate the survey,
EAVI provided a template formal letter with the link to the questionnaire to be circulated
around various organizations (Appendix 2). It created a list of universities, institutes and
student associations across the EU and sent them all the letters via email. Next, it posted the
link together with a more informal message (Appendix 3) in several Facebook groups of
universities and organizations, on a daily basis for over a week. Lastly, it created a Facebook
event for the purposes of inviting people personally to fill in the questionnaire. The overall
period of collecting the data was four weeks.
The present report reflects on the findings obtained from both quantitative and qualitative data
collection. The fact that we added more nuanced information from interviews enabled us to
have a better understanding of the phenomena underlying the results from our survey.

12
4. Survey Results
In this chapter readers will find the survey data analysis enriched by some consideration came out
from the face-to-face interviews.
The survey has been completed online by 1308 young people between 18 and 35 years old from
the European Union, in the period November-December 2013. At that time, almost 3 out of 10
of our respondents were not living in their own country. Two out of three respondents are
female (67,65%), highlighted in the figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Ratio respondents ‘gender - in percentage.
A plausible explanation for the differences in the response rate between males and females can
be attributed to many factors. One of them can be the way gender influences decision-making
in an online environment16. Studies have demonstrated trends that women are more likely to
take part in surveys than men17, since they place higher importance on being socially connected
than men do. Furthermore, in the borders of the EU women represents the majority of students
and university graduates in most countries18. It is likely that we have reached more women,
16 http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=elementary_ed_pub
17 http://www.bebr.ufl.edu/files/The%20Effects%20of%20Response%20Rate%20Changes%20on%20th
e%20Index%20of %20Consumer%20Sentiment.pdf
18 http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice./documents/thematic_reports/120EN.pdf
31,89%
67,84%
Male
Female

13
since our participants were recruited through an accidental sampling and the survey link was
primarily distributed across universities and student organizations.
4.1. Youth and the Media
In this section of the survey we find out some aspects of the relation between European youth and the
media; in particular we asked to what extent people consider themselves well-informed, what are the
principle media they use, how much time they spend using them and an evaluation about the content
reliability founded in different media and created by different subjects.
When asked to self-evaluate their level of being well informed19 (Figure 2), 80% of the
respondents indicated they consider themselves enough or well informed; half of the
respondents think they are well informed, “especially in the things that they consider
important” (50,38%) and about a third (29,17%) affirms they are “constantly up to date with
the news and what’s happening in the world”.
Figure 2. Respondents’ self-evaluation of the extent they consider themselves informed - in percentage.
19 In the survey well informed is considered a person “having extensive knowledge especially of current
topics and events”
1,48%2,96%
15,84%
50,37%
29,36%
5. Generally speaking, do you consider yourself well informed?
Don't know No, I am not well in-
f ormed because I am
not interested
Not much, also be-
cause it's dif f icult to
be aware of ev ery-
thing that happens
Enough, especially in
the things that are
important to me
Yes, I am constantly
up to date with the
news and what's
happening in the

14
This high rate auto-evaluation shows that young people feel very confident about their level of
general knowledge and somehow also about their capacity to find the information they look for.
So, a simple question rises up: where do they look for information?
4.1.1 Which Media?
The two main sources of information used by young people around the EU are social networks
and online newspapers (figure 3). Only 7,35% of the respondents consider printed newspapers
a primary source of information, pointing out to the constantly increasing pervasiveness of
digital media among young people. Mainstream media as television, radio and printed
newspapers are losing their roles as primary sources of information to the detriment of online
media. Especially television, that remains the predominant channel of information for most
Europeans20 is considered an important source only by one out of four young people (26,62%).
Figure 3. Respondents’ primary sources of information – in percentage
This can be attributed to the fact that people nowadays prefer to search for information by
themselves, taking advantage of the multiple sources and opportunities offered by the World
Wide Web anywhere and anytime. This process is well described by the sociologist Manuel
Castells in his book “Communication Power” (2009), where he affirms that a new type of
20 http://www.euractiv.com/infosociety/survey-tv-remains-main-informati-news-215782
Social Net-
works (Face-
book, Twitter,
YouTube, ecc)
Online
Newspapers
Tv Google or other
search engines
Information plat-
forms, blogs
and websites
Radio Printed
Newspaper
Specialized
magazines
-10.00%
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
56.42%
49.73%
26.62%
21.21% 19.83%
9.44% 7.32% 5.73%
6. What are your primary sources of information?

15
communication is present in our age: the “mass self-communication”. According to Castells,
since on a global scale “the production of the message(s) is self-generated, the definition of the
potential receiver(s) is self-directed and the retrieval of specific information and content is self-
selected”.
4.1.2 Time young people spend on different media
After having defined which media young people prefer to use, we explored how much time they
spend using them. Responding to question number 7, almost 9 out of 10 respondents reported
using a social network, a search engine and accessing Internet with different devices every day
or almost every day. A meaningful data reinforcing the phenomenon explained in the previous
paragraph is that the top 5 media used by the youth are all online media, meanwhile the last
five include the more traditional and old ones like radio, TV and printed newspapers and
magazines.
Figure 4. Respondents ‘frequency of engagement with a set of activities within the last three months - in percentage.
Use a
social
network
Use a
search
engine
Use the
internet
on any
other
device
Use the
internet
on your
mobile
phone
Read an
online
News-
paper
Watch
TV
Listen to
the radio
Reading
news
from in-
depen-
dent
sources
Read a
printed
News-
paper
Read a
special-
ized
maga-
zine
0.00%
20.00%
40.00%
60.00%
80.00%
100.00%
90.61%
84.18%
75.95%
56.33%
51.58%
36.18%
33.02%
18.14%
8.23% 5.91%
7. In the last three months, how often on average did you carry out the following activities?

16
This is also reflects to the fact that, on average, 75% of our respondents declared to spend
online more than 3 hours per day, with the 38,5% connected for more than 6 hours/day (Figure
5 below)21. Therefore, it can be assumed that this time is sufficient to obtain substantial
information on different topics, which will make our respondents feel themselves well
informed.
Figure 5. Respondents ‘average hours spent online on daily basis - in percentage.
4.1.3 Media content reliability
The answers to question number 9 are, in our opinion, very interesting and shed light on a quite
curious phenomenon. People were asked to rate the average reliability of information
contained in different media, on a scale from 1 to 5 (where 1 stands for totally unreliable and 5
stands for totally reliable). Participants’ ratings demonstrated that young people consider
social networks not a reliable source of information, with an average evaluation of 2.71, so
under the medium point of 3. Looking at Figure 6 below, we can see that social networks are
considered, on average, the least reliable source of information, followed by television.
21 Analyzing the data we have to take in consideration the fact that this survey was disseminated online
only, via email and using social networks, so it reached only people who have Internet access.
Less then 1 1 – 3 3 – 5 6 – 10 10 or more
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
1.80%
22.60%
37.06%
30.31%
8.24%
8. On average, how many hours do you spend online every day?

17
Nevertheless, respondents are using them daily and more than half (56%) consider social
networks one of their primary sources of information.
Figure 6. Average reliability of the information contained in different media, - in percentage.
A clear fracture is emerging here. It looks rather counterintuitive that young people get
information mostly from social networks, which they simultaneously consider not fully reliable.
Previous studies have shown that although social networking sites are common sources for
information among college students, they are not necessarily perceived as credible22. However,
students are using them because they are easily available and convenient23 and the information
found there is shared and generated by self-selected users/authors. In the same way, probably
our respondents use social media as their main source of information due to its availability and
convenience but they are well aware that they have to be quite critical and selective with the
information found there. Previous studies explain that the most popular way used by users to
evaluate the trustworthiness of social network’s content is to check both others’
22 http://www.jasonmorrison.net/iakm/4006074.pdf
23 http://www.asis.org/asist2013/proceedings/submissions/posters/67poster.pdf
Special-
ized
maga-
zines
News-
papers
Radio Indepen-
dent
sources
(Informa-
tion plat-
forms,
blogs and
articles)
Search
engines
TV Social
Networks
1
2
3
4
5
3.83
3.43
3.26 3.21 3.19
2.93
2.73
9. On average, in scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is totally unreliable and 5 is totally reliable,
how reliable would you rate the information in the following media?

18
reactions/opinions and information about the author/poster24. Therefore, there are set of
techniques, young people apply when judging the reliability of a particular piece of information.
However, in our paper we did not ask our respondents about the way they evaluate how reliable
a specific source is, but we believe it is important to do so in future studies.
It seems that young Europeans have a good idea about the importance of editorial scrutiny,
which is confirmed by the rating assigned by the majority of the participants to specialized
magazines. Magazines are considered quite reliable, even though only 5% use them as a
primary source of information. Probably because accessing them often requires more
resources, in terms of time, efforts and money. Furthermore, unlike social media, which focus
on shared interests, magazines target audiences with specialized interests and thus, limit their
scope and reachability25.
Another interesting point for reflection rose up in question number 10 (figure.7 below).
Figure 7. Reliability of the information concerning politicians and political parties in different media - in percentage.
24 http://www.asis.org/asist2011/posters/283_FINAL_SUBMISSION.pdf
25 http://aejmcmagazine.arizona.edu/Journal/Fall2013/Martin.pdf
Special-
ized
maga-
zines
Inde-
pen-
dent
source
s (In-
forma-
tion
plat-
forms,
blogs
and ar-
ticles)
Search
en-
gines
Mass
media
(TV,
Radio,
News
pa-
pers)
Social
Net-
works
Political
groups
on their
mem-
bers'
activi-
ties
(web
site)
Politi-
cians
on
them-
selves
(per-
sonal
web-
sites,
social
media,
media)
1
2
3
4
5
3.56
3.25 3.12
2.86 2.83
2.47 2.42
10. Please rate how you believe information provided through the following
media represent the activities and beliefs of your elected representatives
on a scale where "1" means inaccurate representation and "5" accurate representation.

19
People were asked to what extents they believe the information provided in different media
represent the real activities and beliefs of their elected representatives on a scale from 1 to 5
(where 1 stands for totally unreliable and 5 stands for totally reliable).
Judging from the results, it became evident that more than half of our survey
respondents do not trust the information politicians and political parties provide about
themselves. At the same time there is a clear demand for a greater use of social media to provide
information about the EU and its activities. Young people prefer to get information from
independent sources and specialized magazines, which they consider more reliable than
institutional sources.
From the interviews, it also emerged a strong criticism about media use to inform about Europe.
Young people perceive a big lack of information regarding European politics and especially
what their representatives are daily doing in Brussels. The information provided by political
actors is considered not reliable and insufficient, also because it is generated by a mistrusted
political class. A big part of the interviewees think instead that this kind of information should
be provided by independent actors. It is important for them the development of more pan-
European media channels, similar to Euronews, and that the different national broadcaster
services dedicate more time explaining what is going on especially in the European Parliament
and other EU institutions.
From the educational perspective, a lot of critics have targeted national educational systems,
considered inadequate and not enough focused in teaching people about European Union.
Following the majority of opinions expressed in face-to-face interviews, education to EU
matters. It should start in secondary school and it is an essential prerequisite to the
development of a real European public sphere.

20
4.2. Political activity and the EU
In this section of the survey we tried to discover if young people are aware of their rights and the
opportunities they have as European citizens, if they are interested in and want to participate
more in the European political process as well as their opinions on the currently existing youth's
opportunities to participate in the decision making processes.
4.2.1. Which activities?
Responding to question 11 (Figure 8), participants were asked how politically active they
consider themselves. Almost half of their answers are situated in the middle of the scale. 47%
consider themselves interested in politics, but the only active political action they are engaged
with is that of voting. A relatively big part of the respondents (25,5%) consider themselves
politically active, because they participate in online discussions, sign petitions and share their
ideas (18.6%) and also because they are involved in political parties, movements, organizations
etc. (6,7%). Only 8% of the respondents indicated they are not active at all (they do not vote
and are not interested in politics).
Figure 8. Respondents’ self-evaluation of level of politically activeness - in percentage.
7,88
19,22
47,19
18,57
7,13
How much do you consider yourself politically active?
Not activ e at all (I
don't v ote and don't
f ollow politics)
I v ote but I am not in-
terested in politics
I am interested in po-
litics and my act of
v oting depends on
many f actors
I am interested and
cy beractiv e (I parti-
cipate in online di-
scussions, I sign pe-
titions and promote
my ideas)
Very activ e (I am
inv olv ed in a politi-
cal party , associa-
tion, mov ement or
collectiv e)

21
The broad spectrum of activities that young people are engaged with reflects their diverse
perceptions on what it means to be ‘politically active’. The term is very broad and generally it
entails being interested in politics and in the decision-making processes, trying to make a
change to the way a political entity is currently governed. Therefore, people have different ways
to express their interests and act along them. People can opt for being active in formal politics
through voting and being member of a political party, as well as using other means of
participation. As it was shown young people, seem to prefer to be active in new forms of
engagement26. This observation has also been confirmed in our survey.
4.2.2 Focus on national or EU politics
Questions number 12 and 13 highlighted the fact that even young people, who are sometimes
more European-minded than older generations, still follow politics mainly at national level
rather than at European one (Figure 9). Taking in consideration only the “yes” responses,
national politics are followed by 53% of the respondents while European politics only by 31%
of them.
This main attention to national level is not surprising, since young people still feel more part of
a single country rather than part of the European family27. Therefore, their national identities
still matter more and they are better shaped than the EU ones. As a result, what is going on at
local and national level is deemed as more relevant and influential in their everyday life. With
the development of the EU as a supranational structure, the meaning of citizenship has been
altered28. Political and economic integration make nowadays young Europeans question the
limits of their participation. This is reflected in the fact that half of the respondents indicated
they are still interested in EU politics even if only a little. There is a trend that with Europe being
more integrated than ever before young Europeans see they can actually have multiple
identities at the same time and belong to and participate in several communities at once29.
26 https://www.academia.edu/2748790/Young_people_and_political_activism
27 http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/pdf/youth-and-european-identity-final-report_en.pdf
28 http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4257&context=flr
29 http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~rdalton/archive/polstudies08.pdf

22
Still, the interviews conducted in the framework of initiative confirmed the notion that young
people are not so involved with EU politics simply because they seem distant from their
everyday life. They feel insufficiently informed about affairs taking place at EU level, which
poses an extra obstacle to engaging them further.
Figure 9. Interest in national and European politics, in absolute value.
The lack of information about EU politics becomes even more evident in question 16. Once
asked whether they know their MEPs, 25,5% of the respondents indicated to have a clear idea
who represents them in the European Parliament, with the remaining 74,5% divided between
people who don't know their MEPs at all (31,7%) or know only a few (42,8%). Despite this fact,
63,9% of the respondents intend to vote to the European Parliament elections in May 2014,
while 26,7% has not decided yet and only 9,4% already know that they won't do it. The high
percentage of participants that expressed their intentions to vote signifies that young EU
citizens are not apathetic to politics.
National European
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
53.08%
31.28%
13.19%
21.21%
33.73%
47.51%
Do you follow politics at national and European level?
yes
no
a little

23
Figure 10. Intentions to vote in the European Parliament elections of May 2014, in percentage.
A big challenge for the EU institutions is to attract those who are still undecided to participate
and respond to the demand for more and better information made by young citizens,
highlighted by questions 15 and 19. It is auspicated an action from the EU especially in
providing young people with more ways to participate in the EU decision-making processes.
Currently, the majority either do not feel there are enough opportunities for EU citizens to
participate and influence the decisions of the EU (46,4%) or do not know which are these
opportunities (33,9%). Just 19,7% of our respondents consider the current opportunities are
sufficient. This is further demonstrated by the fact that even though 61% of the respondents
are aware of their rights as EU citizens, half of them have never heard for instance about the
ECI's (50,1%), and only the 12,28% have signed one.
4.2.3 Willingness to participate
Taking in consideration the transversal demand of more citizens’ engagement in the decision-
making process using the media, and especially Internet, we asked our participants what would
they do in case this would be a mean of a more direct participation. As shown in figure 11 below,
90,5% of the respondents express their desire to participate, with the majority of people that
“would only participate in the matters they know very well” (55%) and a 35,5% that “would
always participate with their vote because it is their right”. Only 9,5% of them would not
participate because they do not consider themselves expert enough (5,7%) or simply because
yes no only a few
0.00%
5.00%
10.00%
15.00%
20.00%
25.00%
30.00%
35.00%
40.00%
45.00%
50.00%
25.65%
31.41%
42.93%
Q16 - Do you know your representatives
in the European Parliament?
yes no I don't know
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
63.85%
9.31%
26.84%
In May 2014 there will be the European Parliament
elections; do you think you will vote?

24
they are not interested (3,8%). Such a percentage clearly demonstrates again that young people
are quite interested in politics30 , but simply experience lack of opportunities to get engaged.
The importance of accessible and clear information is pinpointed explicitly in the observation
that every second respondent would like to be actively involved in the decision-making
processes related to well-known matters.
Figure 11. Respondents’ intentions to participate in the decision-making process if given the chance by media - in percentage.
30
http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/research/academicgroups/equality/forumyouthparticipation/keyfindings
/findings2011/Sloam_Voice_Equality_Youth2013.pdf
I would always participate with my vote because it's my right
I would only participate in the matters that I know very well
I would not participate because I am not expert enough to influence politics that affect everyone
I would not participate because I am not interested
0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00%
35.75%
54.93%
5.59%
3.73%
Generally speaking, if the media offered you the chance
to participate in every decision-making process, what would you do?

25
5. Some conclusions
The findings from our survey served as a basis to draw some preliminary conclusions, which in
turn helped us to suggest a number of recommendations to the European Commission.
To start with one of the primary findings of our study is that young people, often labeled as
apathetic, are instead very interested in being more engaged and want to have more chances to
influence the decisions taken at European level. This was clearly illustrated by the high
percentage of respondents who felt there is a general lack of participation opportunities
available.
The results of our survey marked also a clear trend observed among young people in this
regard: 90% of the respondents are willing to use media to participate in the decision-making
process, if given the opportunity, especially when well-known matters are at stake. Moreover,
two out of three respondents expressed their intention to vote in the upcoming European
Parliament elections in May 2014. When asked 26% of the participants indicated they still have
not decided whether to vote or not at the time the survey took place31. More than 70% of the
respondents consider themselves politically active and involved in a range of activities. At the
same time, even if they are generally aware of the rights that come with the European
citizenship, 80% think there are too few opportunities to participate or do not know them at
all.
A vivid example is that only 12% have ever come across or signed a European Citizens' Initiative
and every second respondent has never heard of this initiative. Moreover, the general level of
knowledge of the Members of the European Parliament and their activities is low in comparison
with the respective level of information that young people have of their respective national
members of parliament. In the video interviews people explained that it is difficult to find
reliable information on what their representatives actually do in Brussels, and this lack of
information is one of the primary causes of interviewees’ mistrust and skepticism.
These results clearly show that even among young people, who are more European-minded and
connected on-line than the older generations, the EU is generally perceived as a not very well-
31 This finding is also confirmed by the data obtained in the Euro barometer survey on “European Youth
Participation in Democratic Life” (Gender Differences in Educational Outcomes, 2010).

26
known and quite distant organization. Therefore we feel that there is an urgent need to change
the way EU and its activities are currently communicated to people and to offer more
opportunities of engagement to the young people especially.
5.1. Media and Communication/information
In order to bring young people closer to the EU, authorities should first create more citizens’
awareness on EU issues. How this can be done? Directing their efforts to reach European youth
via the channels they use the most. The fact that such a big part of the respondents did not know
about the existence of ECIs or the work of their MEPs, for example, indicates that the channels
used to spread this kind of information does not reach efficiently the targeted audience .
According to the results of our study, the main channels of communication/information for
young people are online, with 75% of the respondents using Internet from different devices for
three or more hours per day. The two most used channels to get informed - social networks and
online newspapers - are digital, too. Discussing these findings we wish to point out a striking
observation from our survey that young people do not perceive information contained in social
networks as credible enough, despite evidently using them a lot. According to our study, online
media sources, and in particular social media, are considered less credible, since the content
available is not subjected to rigorous scrutiny. Indeed, everybody can publish (almost) all sorts
of information, without having an expertise or moreover, having vested interests32.
This is also one of the reasons people do not trust the information provided by political figures
in social media, which combined with the low rate of trust the political class enjoys these days,
is reflected in ranking them the least trustworthy source among our survey’s options.
Respondents believe information shared by EU-Institutions in their social networks pages and
by MEPs in their personal blogs, Facebook and Twitter profiles are not reliable enough, mostly
because it is managed by politicians’ stuff and focused on promoting their interests and image.
Furthermore, the face-to-face interviews revealed a big demand of young people for more
objective and independent communication entities, which are not associated with any
particular political or economic interest and thus are deemed credible. The interviewees
32 http://rieh.people.si.umich.edu/papers/rieh_credibility_chapter3.pdf

27
expressed their wish for thorough and impartial information about the EU to be provided on
everyday basis by neutral actors, also via social media.
 This is why the EU should provide more resources to youth organizations, NGOs and
other civil society organizations to promote youth interests and share information about
EU politics, MEPs, EU opportunities and rights.
The demand for more impartial, transparent and quality information about the EU has also
been done targeting the Europe of mainstream media, and especially television. What emerged
from the survey and the interviews is that people think there is an enormous lack of information
regarding EU matters in the TV news channels. Furthermore, a common feeling of skepticism
surfaced in the video interviews conducted across the EU. Good examples are the interviews
recorded in Lithuania, where respondents claimed to be critical towards all means of mass
media, which produce information.
“I think that mass media should be more impartial when communicating European news and the
EU image. They should not defend economic interests neither ultra nationalist political ideas of
the different EU states.”
We collected numerous opinions on the benefit that new pan-European TV channels and more
space for EU topics in the national news channels would produce in increasing the overall level
of information of the general public, since "most people won't search for new laws and directives
of EU parliament".
A respondent from our survey pointed out that “there should be a European TV channel in every
language and so, in every member state of the EU. At least a public channel, but perhaps a
commercial one as well, so European media come closer to citizens and people have better
opportunities of knowing what’s happening in Europe, especially in euro politics”.
Other comments highlighted the importance of having EU daily news in the national and local
news channels: “Adding a daily page covering European issues on the TV news would help people
know better the EU and it would make them feel that Europe count in their daily life”.
According to our interviewees, there is a big lack of information regarding the daily work of the
European Parliament, especially in the TV news channels and in comparison with the
information regarding the national parliaments. A respondent asked himself “How is it possible

28
that we constantly leave our families and our countries in the hands of a group of people (MEPs)
elected from us that we don’t even understand or know how it works and the common man don’t
even know the result of its voting?”
Furthermore, it is crucial to promote the existing tools better, so that young citizens can take
advantage of them. EU institutions and media should work for that promoting and stimulating
the born of ECIs among citizens. “I think that media in general should change their focus so they
would also inform people about the possibilities for participation in democracy. Right now no one
does that. No one informs about the ECIs, for example”. According to the findings of our study we
think that ECIs could both show citizens that some concrete opportunity of participation exists
and shed a positive light on the image of the EU as well. ECIs campaigns should therefore receive
more support from politicians and media agencies and their promotion should not been left
only in the hands of the private promoters.
5.2. Education
Many of the comments we received stated that education is a fundamental way to improve
young people's engagement with the EU. The aforementioned wave of mistrust expressed by
the participants in our study signals an urgent need to change the way EU-related issued is
currently communicated to the youth. This means not only that EU decision-makers should
work in the direction of creating credible communication channels, but that they also should
consider providing civic education from an early age. Such a remark occurred quite often in our
survey and it is well based in the literature, where several studies have found civic education
to increase forms of political expression33.
“In order to use the media as a tool of promoting decision-making and Europe closer to the
citizens, the first necessary step is civic education and awareness.”
A lot of critics have also been targeting the national educational systems, which are considered
inadequate and not enough focused on teaching people about the European Union. Following
the majority of opinions expressed in the face-to-face interviews, education on EU matters
33
https://www.academia.edu/4955985/Why_has_civic_education_failed_to_increase_young_peoples_pol
itical_participation

29
should start in the secondary school and is an essential prerequisite to the development of a
real European public sphere.
“Schools and universities should take a leading role in motivating students to use their rights”.
“Make educational materials about the EU history, works and ways to influence it”.
 Therefore, the inclusion of EU studies should be promoted better across Europe.
5.3. Participation tools
To produce and use the ‘right’ communication channels and providing education about the EU
to young people is not sufficient. Authorities should also facilitate the use of accessible
participation tools.
Having access to more and better tools is vital for stimulating young EU citizens to take part in
political life more actively. It is also one of the ways to empower citizens34 and, in turn, enable
their active participation in decision-making processes35. Once people have the tools to
participate in political activities and to make use of these tools, they can also more effectively
monitor and make governments a little bit more accountable. Furthermore, it is crucial to
promote those tools which already exist (e.g. ECI), so that young citizens can take full advantage
of them.
The fact that young people prefer to choose new forms of political participation (especially via
Internet) or modify the existing ones (e.g. signing on-line petitions) is a trend that should be
taken into account. It is these new means of direct participation that make young Europeans
feel they influence decision-making more directly and efficiently. The virtual spaces constitute
a great resource for political and social engagement, which the young people have been the
fastest to acknowledge and exploit. Since youngsters feel more comfortable using these tools
and are generally not satisfied with the conventional ways of political engagement, strategies
to bring them closer to the political processes should move in this direction36. To do so, the EU
34 file:///C:/Users/irena/Downloads/Bi-directional%20%20civic%20activities%2015.4.2008.pdf
35 http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/egms/docs/2013/ict/AideMemoire.pdf
36 http://www.jongerenambassadeurs.be/participatie/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/The-effects-of-
internet-use-on-political-participation.-An-analysis-of-survey-resutls-for-16-year-olds-in-Belgium-
Quintelier-Vissers1.pdf

30
policy-makers should acknowledge these modern expressions of political action and
communication and try to adapt to the new realities, in order not to lose the valuable
contribution of young people.
 Taking into account the findings of our survey and other available literature EU
authorities should consider new strategies to access and inform young Europeans about
existing tools facilitating participation in decision-making at EU level.
This is the place to note that conducting our survey online means we reached only people with
Internet access. Internet access is not equal among the population37. Therefore, further
research into political participation among young people, who are not online, is needed.
5.4. Building a European identity
When it comes to interest in politics, our results indicated that the majority of young people are
more interested in what is going on at national level, which is not surprising in time of crisis
when citizens' identities and political activities are focused on their national governments.
The fact that young people ascribe larger importance to national issues reflects the prevalent
feeling that EU institutions are felt far away and decisions taken there do not seem to have a
direct impact on their lives. This feeling results from a lack of proper communication and
information from the EU as well as missing relevant education inside and outside schools to
reveal the actual importance and scope of influence the EU has in respect to citizens life’s
conditions.
Young people are more interested in the political situation of their own country. This is further
reinforced by a feel of a stronger national identity and not a clear concept of what a European
identity should represent. By definition, identity is ‘that part of the individual's self-concept
which derives from his knowledge of membership of a social group (or groups) together with
the value and emotional significance attached to that membership’38. However, knowledge can
vary significantly across individuals from different countries and generations. This variation is
additionally amplified by economic and social differences observed across the EU member
states.
37 http://www.uic.edu/cuppa/ipce/interior/egovexecsummary2009.pdf
38 http://aei.pitt.edu/33069/1/huyst._petra.pdf

31
A ‘profile’ of EU-minded individuals suggests that they travel frequently across Europe,
sometimes live in other European countries for a period of time and are involved in various
aspects of Government39. However, there is still a big discrepancy in the opportunities available
to young people to travel and accumulate some sort of European experience.
 Providing young citizens with more opportunities to travel across Europe to gain
intercultural experience would facilitate their engagement with the EU.
To end on a positive note, we should conclude that young people are willing to participate in
the decision-making processes, if they are given the opportunity and they are eager to use new
media to do so. The majority expressed their intentions to vote at the upcoming European
Parliament elections. This finding is confirmed by the data obtained in the Euro barometer
survey on “European Youth Participation in Democratic Life”40. Two thirds of the respondents
of our survey indicated they would vote in the elections. This significant number challenges the
commonly accepted belief that young people are politically apathetic and demonstrate their
potential as future decision-makers.
This is all good news, but only if the momentum to engage young people in politics at EU level
is made effective by providing them with credible information through the channels they use
the most, ensuring they have adequate tools for full participation in democratic life.
39 http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/atasp/texte/030730_europeaninstandidentity_rev.pdf
40 http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/education/eurydice./documents/thematic_reports/120EN.pdf

32
Appendices
Appendix 1 Online Questionnaire
Q1 What is your gender? (male/female)
Q2 When were you born? (select a year between 1978 and 1995)
Q3 What is your home country? (the 28 member states)
Q4 Are you currently living in another country? (yes/no)
Q5 Generally speaking, do you consider yourself well informed (having extensive knowledge especially
of current topics and events)? (5 options)
 No, I am not well informed because I am not interested
 Not much, also because it's difficult to be aware of everything that happens
 Enough, especially in the things that are important to me
 Yes, I am constantly up to date with the new s and what's happening in the world
 Don't know
Q6 What are your primary sources of information? Max two choices (8 options)
 Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, ecc)
 Online Newspapers
 TV
 Google or other search engines
 Information platforms, blogs and websites
 Radio
 Printed Newspapers
 Specialized magazines
Q7 In the last three months, how often on average did you carry out the following activities?
 Use a social Network
 Use a search engine
 Use the internet on any other device
 Read an online Newspaper
 Use the internet on your mobile phone

33
 Watch TV
 Listen to the radio
 Read a printed Newspaper
 Read a specialized magazine
 Reading news from independent sources
Q8 On average, how many hours do you spend online every day? (5 options)
 Less then 1
 1-3
 3-5
 6-10
 10 or more
Q9 On average, in scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is totally unreliable and 5 is totally reliable, how reliable would
you rate the information in the following media?
 Newspapers (Online and printed)
 Radio
 Independent sources (Information platforms, blogs and articles)
 Search engines
 TV
 Social networks
Q10 Please rate how you believe information provided through the following media represent the activities
and beliefs of your elected representatives on a scale where "1" means inaccurate representation and
"5" accurate representation. Information provided by
 Independent sources (information platforms, blogs, articles)
 Search engines
 Mass media (TV/Radio/Newspapers)
 Social networks
 Political groups on their members' activities (web site)
 Politicians on themselves (personal websites, social media, media)
Q11 On the following scale, how much do you consider yourself politically active? (5 options)
 Not active at all (I don't vote and don't follow politics)
 I vote but I am not interested in politics

34
 I am interested in politics and my act of voting depends on many factors
 I am interested and cyberactive (I participate in online discussions, I sign petitions and promote
my ideas)
 Very active (I am involved in a political party, association, movement or collective)
Q12 Do you follow your national politics? (3 options)
 Yes
 No
 A little
Q13 Do you follow EU politics? (3 options)
 Yes
 No
 A little
Q14 Are you aware of your rights as a European citizen?
 Yes
 No
 Don't respond
Q15 What do you think about the current opportunities for EU citizens to participate in the European
decision-making process?
 There are too few
 I don't know them
 There are enough
 There are too many
Q16 Do you know your representatives in the European Parliament?
 Yes
 No
 Only a few
Q17 Have you ever signed an European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) campaign?
 Yes
 No, but I have heard about it
 No, I don't know what ECI's are

35
Q18 In May 2014 there will be the European Parliament elections; do you think you will vote?
 Yes
 I don't know
 No
Q19 Generally speaking, if the media offered you the chance to participate in every decision-making
process, what would you do?
 I would always participate with my vote because it's my right
 I would only participate in the matters that I know very well
 I would not participate because I am not expert enough to influence politics that affect everyone
 I would not participate because I am not interested
Q20 Optional question: various studies show a strong increase in the citizens' demand (especially among
the youth) of more involvement and opportunities to participate in the decisions that affect them by taking
advantage of the great potential of the information and communication technologies. Do you have any
suggestions on to use the media in order to increase citizens' involvement in the democratic process?

36
Appendix 2 Online survey dissemination: Formal letter
Take part in a Europe-wide survey, exploring young people's attitudes and ideas
about the EU, media and citizenship!
To whom it may concern,
The European Association for Viewers’ Interest (EAVI) is a not for profit organization based in Brussels.
EAVI works in the interrelated fields of media, citizenship and education. Its Youth Advisory Group –
EYAG – is a pan-European network of young people who inform and advice certain activities of EAVI
related to media, active citizenship and Europe. EYAG also promotes campaigns and projects at
European and national level. A new initiative ‘Media and Youth Engagement in Europe’ is under
way. This is a collaborative research aimed to gather young European people together and make their
voices heard.
As part of this initiative EYAG is currently conducting an online survey targeting young EU people.
The purpose of the survey is to understand what young European people think about the EU and the
opportunities it offers, their proposals and ideas as well as the role media play in today's Europe.
We would be grateful if you could circulate the link to our survey across the students in your
university, so that those interested in the topic can participate. Filling in the questionnire takes only
5 minutes and every respondent is important.
You can find more information on EYAG (eyag.altervista.org) and EAVI (www.eavi.eu). In you have any
questions do not hesitate to contact us via our email – eyag@eavi.eu.
Yours sincerely,
Paolo Celot
EAVI Secretary General

37
Appendix 3 Online survey dissemination: Informal letter
Dear friends,
The European Association for Viewers' Interests (EAVI) and EYAG - its Youth Advisory Group - are
presently conducting an on-line survey targeting young EU people from 18 to 35 years old within the
framework of the current initiative "Media and Young Citizens' Engagement in the EU".
The purpose of this initiative is to understand what young European people think about the EU and the
opportunities it offers, their proposals and ideas as well as the role media play in today's Europe.
Therefore, we ask you to
TAKE PART IN THE SURVEY: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/EYAG1
The collected data will be used to support policy recommendations for European institutions on some of
the key priorities of the Europe 2020 strategy. For this reason your opinions are IMPORTANT.
We would be grateful if you share the survey link among your friends and networks, spreading this
opportunity to as many people as possible.

38
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