Introduction

Over the past two decades, there has been widespread concern across Europe and in many other industrialised countries about an apparent decline in civic and political participation. Commentators point to long-term reductions in voting rates, declining levels of trust in politicians and waning interest in civic affairs; and these phenomena are frequently seen as evidence of a broader crisis in democracy (e.g. Putnam, 2000; Scheufele and Nisbet, 2002; Gibson et al, 2003; Galston, 2004). These issues are generally seen to be most apparent among the young: it is often asserted that young people are increasingly apathetic and reluctant to exercise their civic responsibilities. In this context, some have looked to the Internet as a means of re-engaging young people. The Internet is seen to have greater appeal and relevance for young people than ‘older’ means of civic participation; and to have the potential for creating new, networked forms of communication and democratic political culture (Bennett, 2003; Lenhart et al, 2004; Coleman, 2005, 2008; Kann et al, 2007). These possibilities have been addressed by growing numbers of researchers in recent years (e.g. Bachen et al, 2008; Bennett, 2008; Bennett et al, 2009; Dahlgren, 2007; Loader, 2007; Gerodimos, 2008).

The CivicWeb project

In this chapter, we present some key findings from a pan-European research project that attempted to put some of these arguments to the test. CivicWeb was a three-year research project funded under the European Commission's Framework 6 programme for targeted socioeconomic research (2006–09). It set out to analyse the potential contribution of the Internet to promoting civic engagement and participation among young people aged 15–25. It focused specifically on the range of youth-oriented civic sites created by organisations, interest groups and individuals, ranging from small-scale, local initiatives to national and international projects.

The research used both quantitative and qualitative methods, and focused on three key dimensions of this new online civic sphere:

• • the nature and characteristics of such sites, in terms of their content and formal features (design, mode of address, structure), and the extent to which they invite active participation among their users;

• • the production of the sites, including the motivations, working practices and economic models of the producers;

• • the uses and interpretations made of such sites by different social groups of young people, and the relationship between this online activity and their civic participation ‘offline’.