New Media and Political Participation

Abstract

This chapter examines the usage of new forms of media to enhance and facilitate political participation., It assess political participation levels amongst young people, primarily in the UK but with references to other countries, where appropriate. Again, political participation is examined at differing levels of governance, and, in addition, differing types of participation are compared. The usage of new technology, in particular, Web 2.0 technology (such as, social networking sites like Facebook, Bebob, and MySpace, and the use of micro-blogging sites such as Twitter), is analysed in order to ascertain the extent to which these new approaches facilitate and encourage greater political participation amongst young people.