The winning idea from the ‘Hardcopy or #Hashtag: Young People’s Vision for a Digital Parliament’ workshop held at Canterbury Christ Church in September went on to be voted the best idea at the national event in Parliament on Monday 17 November. The students from Oakwood Park Grammar School, Maidstone were up against schools from all over the country. The winning idea was a video based interactive tool ‘One Minute Politics’.

The team made a short video, interviewing local parliamentary candidates including Minister for Sport Helen Grant, to support the idea. Sebastien and Daisy from Oakwood School said:

Vloggers: With YouTube as one of the biggest sources of entertainment for young people and the huge success of vloggers like Zoella who has 2.45 million followers, we decided that the way to get 16-24 year olds involved in politics would be by getting celebs and vloggers to do a 1 minute talk about a political issue that affects them. This could be why VAT affects their fashion choices or the way their local sports teams are funded. Vloggers could even follow in Tyler Oakley’s steps by interviewing top politicians. We have already contacted some of the best known vloggers and we have already started this project by interviewing some of our local politicians ourselves and uploading the videos on the PSA Storify project and also on their website. Check it out here!

The regional workshop was organised by Dr Mark Bennister, Senior Lecturer in Politics, who was in Parliament for the national event supporting Oakwood School.  The event was part of a series of workshops, debates and activities in this year’s Parliament Week.

This initiative to improve digital engagement between Parliament and young people stems from the Digital Democracy Commission, launched by Speaker John Bercow in December 2013. The regional workshops and national event are supported by the Political Studies Association and Parliament Week. The ideas generated will contribute to the Digital Democracy Commission’s final report.

For more information contact Dr Mark Bennister mark.bennister@canterbury.ac.uk

See the politics blog at http://canterburypolitics.wordpress.com/

See the storify of the workshop activities at https://storify.com/PolStudiesAssoc/hardcopy-or-hashtag-regional-workshops

See the Oakwood Park GS video at http://tinyurl.com/opgsdd

For details of the Speaker’s Digital Democracy Commission see http://www.parliament.uk/business/commons/the-speaker/speakers-commission-on-digital-democracy/