Questionnaire survey
The questionnaire was developed to examine in more detail which behaviour, patterns and needs characterize Danish young people. Along with the difference in behavior among the young people, there are also patterns between the so-called young age groups in relation to the other age groups. The questionnaire will define in more detail what these different patterns contain.
Of the 267 Danes who completed the questionnaire (plus the 186 who partially completed it), 71% were women, 28% men and 1% non-binary.
54% live in North Jutland, 33% in Hovedstanden, 6% in Central Jutland, 4% in Zealand and 2% in Southern Denmark.
The majority of participants are in the 25 to 35 age group, followed by the 18 to 24 year olds and then the 35 to 44 year olds.
Information about politics and society
During this section, it will be presented where the Danes who participated in the survey inform themselves how they use social media, how they engage in democracy and how they perceive their democratic form.
Apart from the survey, Danes primarily find their information about news about politics and society on social media, with 73% among all ages, marital status and place of residence. Then follow newspapers with 70%, TV with 62%, friends with 53% and radio with 45%.
If you observe the nuances between the age groups, those over 35 prioritize TV, then the Internet and in third place social media.
Young people find information primarily on social media, where for the 18 to 24-year-olds it is about 80% and for the 25 to 34-year-olds 77%. In second position, these two groups (with approximately 70% for both) look for their news on the Internet and, as a third choice, TV.
The very young, 13 to 17-year-olds , choose equally TV, social media and school/study with 90% in all three.
In general, students use a wide range of media, with digital newspapers, especially popular among the 24-34-year-olds , being mentioned by 10 people, corresponding to approximately 10% of the respondent group who mentioned them themselves.
In the field of social media, Twitter is the least used platform for all target groups. The 18 to 35-year-olds use Facebook first, Instagram second most and Snapchat third most. In general, across all age groups, Twitter is used for news and political content, Facebook primarily for chatting with friends and informing about events, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat are used for viewing "stories", images and videos.
In addition to viewing content and talking to friends, 18 to 35-year-olds primarily use Facebook and Instagram to:
In addition to viewing content and chatting with friends , 18 to 35-year-olds primarily use Instagram to:
"Follow influencers (Mascha Vang/Greta Thunberg)"
"Comment/interact on posts"
"Follow the news/see what's happening around me"
They use Facebook to:
"Updates on associations/activity nearby"
"Get information about events I'm going to"
"Follow the news/see what's happening around me"
There we can see that the most used channel for news and political content is also the media which is the least used: Twitter (the hypothesis is that it is not so used in Denmark). And in addition, young people use Facebook to interact with informative and low-practical content and Instagram for inspirational content.
In the more communally oriented informative format, one can observe that several of the older participants communicate less with other individuals about politics and society.
And in the same pattern , they prioritize conversations with their friends more than with their family. Overall, 60% chose friends, with 46% choosing families, then work with 32% and school 28%. The 18 to 24-year-olds and the 25 to 34-year-olds have chosen friends as information carriers as third place, which is quite positive for democracy. But on the other hand, family is de-prioritized in favor of friends after the age of 18. It is also a negative pattern that Danes do not talk about democracy with colleagues or classmates.
These patterns are relevant because they exist in an everyday context, such as deliberative democracy, in the concrete realities that use demand and communication to reach the information. Social inquiry is shown based on that type of behavior and expands from their social interest (Dewey & Rogers, 2016).
It also shows that the more the individual is challenged in the communicative via context, the more they will avoid dialogue. It may show a lack of verbal confidence, attitude or courage to cultivate disagreements and communicative challenges.
It can also mean that there is a gap between public and private behaviour, according to Dewey & Rogers (2016). The private ones can get involved in communities, and they are also a fairly important part of everyday life. Citizens work, shop or entertain themselves via the private sector, therefore it is relevant that the attitude in those areas becomes growth, via e.g. informative communication (Dewey & Rogers, 2016; Koch, 1991).
Participation and commitment
This section will contain the elements of the questionnaire that inquired about the participants' engagement before and now, together with their reflection on it.
Firstly, it is 47% of the participants who get involved in an association and almost the same percentage who " are or have been" in a student council with 45% , and only 7% are in a party/youth party. When asked whether they would have liked more "politics and society" in primary school, 32% agree and 32% answer "neither or".
In the more activist topic, 51% of all participants have not participated in a demonstration before .
It shows that Danes are generally satisfied with their government and their decisions, or that there is a lack of motivation and desire to participate in such activities.
These patterns show that the Danes are half active in relation to activities in the local community and less engaged in politically oriented activities.
The Danes' democratic "form"
Under the broad topic, democratic "form", the participants were asked how they see their competences within the democratic skills chosen according to the "Democratic skills" that Demokrati Fitness has developed as the relevant training for being a "good" citizen in community.
In general, in all age groups among the Danes who took part in the survey, they rate the following competencies (Democratic skills) to a low degree :
Mobilization, Activist, Verbal Confidence, Compromise and Disagreement.
A point system has been developed, where the levels of competence ("yes, to a high degree" to "no, to a low degree") are coded with more points for the highest and fewer points for the lowest. "Yes, to a great extent" counted for 4 points, "yes, to some extent" counted for 3 points, "no, to a lesser extent" counted for 2 points and "no, to a low extent" counted for only 1 point. These points multiplied by the number of answers given by the participants give a number as a point result for "democratic skills", which is a result between 130 and 367 points. These results give "Democratic ability", a number result from the participants, which indicates an assessment of their competence under the relevant "democratic ability". In addition, if the number result is the same, then it is put in order of the highest number of "yes, to a great extent” answer
Questionnaire collection
In the first part of the analysis of the questionnaire, it emerged that the Danish youth are informed and interact on social media, which is their primary source.
We also know that the content offered to them is monitored according to their data and therefore not representative and random. Therefore, democratic patterns are presented and not relevant sources (Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen Ministry, 2020).
In addition, the Danes show no interest in parties/youth parties (both by digital habit or commitment) and associations. It is negative for the democratic abilities when the parties should in principle be the citizens' representatives and when associations are the communities that represent the commitment of the local community (public arena) (Dewey & Rogers, 2016).
A positive democratic behavior is that the participants of the questionnaire inform themselves via their "friends" about political and social information, but conversely they consider it less important to do it with family (after 18 years). They otherwise do not inform themselves about the topics in their public environment, out there in the private and institutional, such as their colleagues (workplace) and schoolmates (institution) (Dewey & Rogers, 2016).
Through this survey, the citizens also show less competence to activate themselves and communicate via the democratic framework of everyday life.
So from the questionnaire we can conclude that the Danes (represented via the participants in the questionnaire survey) use undemocratic sources to inform themselves about politics and society. They are also not active (formal and informal democracy) and they have challenges engaging and communicating, especially if there is a risk of having to compromise and disagree with others at work and at school.
Process overview
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