Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to today's citizenship lesson.

I'm Mrs. Barry, and I'll be taking you through this lesson today.

We're looking at a series of lessons about digital democracy and how it can increase the political participation.

And today's lesson is all about how digital democracy has worked in other countries.

Now I need to ask you to make sure that you've turned off any apps or notifications, and that you're in a distraction free zone to do our learning today.

And you also need to make sure you've got the right equipment, so for today's lesson and something to write on and something to write with such as paper and a pen is what you will need to complete the lesson.

We have been going through this series of lessons on digital democracy and if you followed this series, you will already have an understanding of what digital citizenship is.

You will have had a look at voter engagement and how it could potentially be improved through digital participation.

And also you will have had to look at political engagement by using digital media and how that can help with political engagement.

And this lesson develops on from those, and we're looking at digital democracy and how it's worked in other countries.

And from that, we can look at the advantages and disadvantages of what has been utilised in other places and what might be applicable here in the United Kingdom.

So we're going to do that by a series of different ways looking at different case studies, and we're starting with what digital democracy looks like in the UK because to understand how other countries do it and how it could apply to the United Kingdom and we need to understand where we're at already.

So what we're doing in terms of digital democracy at the moment.

We've got two case studies that we're going to have a look at; looking at virtual Taiwan and electronic Estonia.

And then we're going to consider both case studies the advantages and disadvantages and what we can learn from them.

And whether we think those could actually be applied in the United Kingdom and whether they would be of benefit looking at digital democracy.

So when you ready to begin we can make a start.

We're going to start this lesson by looking at what democracy looks like in the United Kingdom and to think about digital democracy we need to have a good understanding of how it works in the UK today, especially when we're about to compare it to two other forms of digital democracy.

Digital democracy is the use of digital and online methods to support key functions of democracy.

For example, online information about elections, digital campaigns, citizen consultations by government, citizen participation in parliamentary debates and committees and electronic voting by MPS or the electorate.

In our previous lesson, we considered the extent to which digital democracy is used in the UK, for example through online petitions, consultations and select committees.

If you haven't completed that lesson then you're very welcomed to go back to it and give it a go but to make sure that we've got a good understanding of some of the forms of digital democracy we use in the United Kingdom, we're going to have a recap of that now.

So task one of this lesson is to recap digital democracy in the UK.

And I'd like you to have a look at these three types of digital democratic methods used in the UK and match it with the corresponding definition.

So we're looking for a definition for online consultations, the definition for virtual select committees and a definition for e-petitions.

So pause the video when you're ready and you can press play when you're ready to resume.

Well done for giving that task at go, let's have a look at the feedback for those different definitions.

So online consultations are opportunities for residents to fill in an online form to give feedback on a particular policy or strategy.

Virtual select committees is where a group of MPS from different political parties meet to examine the work of a particular government department.

And e-petitions is a list of electronic signatures supporting a call for the government to take specific action.

But all of these are used in the United Kingdom and our online or digital democratic methods.

Virtual select committees are relatively new in the sense that they've been formed to adhere to social distancing caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

But this is a way that select committees can work to meet the needs of all the different people they involve and allow different people to contribute even though it might be difficult to normally, for example saves and travelling to London and to attend as they can participate online.

And it's something that potentially might continue in the future.

We're going to move on to thinking about methods of digital democracy and the UK is using some digital methods as we've just looked at to help citizens participate in democracy.

The biggest example of that is e-petitions, they're very popular.

They're easy to sign and promote using things like social media which we'll discuss in lesson six of this unit and allows people to be involved and become more active in their communities and with the politics of their country.

So what are the digital technologies or processes could be used within democracy? And we're going to consider how they can be used.

And task two is the start of a task that we're going to develop throughout this lesson.

And we're going to be thinking about how can digital technologies be used in democracy.

So you're going to need an A4 piece of paper if you've got particularly large handwriting and a bigger piece of paper would be brilliant but you need to start small in the middle of a piece of paper.

And we're going to work our way out with this mind map and add lots of different ideas.

And to get you started with this task I'm giving you one example.

So an electronic survey is a digital technology that could be used in democracy for things like voting or gathering viewpoints.

We'd like you to spend about five minutes.

Come up with your own ideas about what digital technologies are out there.

So think about what you do, what you use in terms of digital technology and how that could be applied to the UK democracy or democratic methods that you think could be altered as a result of digital technologies.

So when you're ready, press pause spend about five minutes on that.

And then you can click play when you've given that go.

Well done for giving that task a really good go and thinking about your knowledge of digital technologies and how they might be applied to democracy in the United Kingdom.

I have put on some different ideas to get started, and to try and check up on the sorts of things you might have done.

So don't worry if you haven't got all these or if you perhaps have a few different things to what I've put, but these are some of the key things I think we can pick up on when we look at digital technologies and how they might be applied in democracy in the United Kingdom.

So we've got electronic surveys which you already wrote on those, our example when you started the task and that might include actual online voting or gathering viewpoints on different issues, perhaps in law making, there's electronic communications, such as email.

And that might influence the way that you communicate with a member of parliament and the way that you gather information.

You have campaigning and so that could be done through social media.

So social media is digital technology that you might have talked about and lot of people use it to spread messages, so that would be campaigning.

And then there are things like virtual meetings, doing online meetings face-to-face where you can actually see someone via a webcam, for example and that's been used in select committees.

So when we did task one, we thought about select committees and how they've gone online to meet the needs of our current society.

So let's have a look at our case studies now.

We're going to move on to our two case studies and develop our understanding of how digital technology can be used within democracy and how other countries are using these digital technologies in different ways to develop their democratic methods.

Now, why are we looking at these other communities, these other places and how they using digital democracy? Well, we're part of a global community and we can often learn from those around us at how things work and could potentially be transferred.

We're often working with other countries and so digital democracy doesn't have to be any different.

We can look at and communicate with other countries, find out what they're doing, how they're doing it, what works, what doesn't work and potentially bring some of those ideas into our own democratic systems. In the UK digital democracy is not utilised in the same way as it is in other countries.

And we can learn from and discover different ways that it's used elsewhere.

And we're going to have a look at these two case studies of virtual Taiwan and electronic Estonia.

The first case study we're looking at is vTaiwan.

And V sign literally stands for virtual.

And it's about a movement about thinking about democracy and rethinking democracy.

And it's an experiment that prototypes and open consultation process, the entire society to engage in rational discussion on national issues.

And the vTaiwan process consists of four different stages; proposal, opinion, reflection, and legislation.

And it's supported by a selection of collaborative open source engagement tools or digital platforms that allow people to have real time access and comment on what is going on.

Now Taiwan is an island nation in East Asia with a population of 23.

4 million, which might sound like a lot, but it's less than we have in the United Kingdom.

And it's worth noting that for a task we'll think about in a bit.

In 2014, the people of Taiwan took part in a series of protests, would share that dissatisfaction, that the lack of legislative transparency of that governance they weren't very happy about how clear law making was.

And the protest lasted three weeks and included the occupation of the Taiwanese parliament by protest groups, the movement behind these protests, became known as the Student's Sunflower Movement.

And from this movement emerged the organisation g0v and the digital democracy platform vTaiwan or virtual Taiwan.

The goal of vTaiwan is to act as a platform for a more participatory democracy and to bring ordinary citizens directly into the conversation about new laws and government policies.

The software called Polis, Polis is a real time system for gathering, analysing and understanding what large groups of people think in their own words and allows citizens to contribute their views on different laws and proposals from the government.

Law makers use these answers to identify consensus clusters.

So where lots of people agree on the same issue.

And then the views of citizens are used to shape the new laws.

By the end of February 2019, 26 cases had been discussed through this process.

And 80% of them had actually led to some decisive government action.

And this ranges from lots of different things but is included in better Uber regulations in Taiwan and Uber is a taxi type firm, rating on zero hours.

And they actually improved the regulations in Taiwan for those working for Uber.

What I would like you to think about is what we've learnt from vTaiwan.

So I've placed vTaiwan in a specific place.

Why have I placed it there? What can we add to our mind map about how vTaiwan has demonstrated and taught us about digital methods of using democracy and how digital technologies that enhance democracy within the United Kingdom? So press pause, have a think about what vTaiwan did and how it worked and add some information to your mind map that would detail the different things that they've done could be transferred into United Kingdom democratic system.

When you're ready, press play and we can continue the lesson.

Welcome back and well done with giving that task a go.

What we're really looking for here is this placement of vTaiwan where I've put it on the mind map but also looking at adding concepts, such as Polis which is the real time system for gathering, analysing and understanding large groups of people think in their own words.

And so through using electronic communication or to a certain extent electronic surveys you can gather lots of different people's views and ideas and identify what was called consensus clusters.

So where lots of people are saying the same thing to influence and shape new laws in the case of vTaiwan but this could apply to other issues as well whether it be national democracy or local democracy.

You might also have thoughts about how people working together would develop democratic decision-making.

And so again, this could be through electronic surveys or electronic communication.

Well done.

Now what we need to consider here is could these methods used by vTaiwan be applied in the United Kingdom and there's always pros and cons to any new idea.

And here you can see that actually it could reinvigorate the democratic process as it would allow more people to directly impact the political processes or do in place.

It could also mean more young people become active in politics, tends to be younger generations that want to use these digital technologies and it might engage ageing people to become more involved.

However, on the other side, it might not be applicable to the United Kingdom because using an online platforms like the policy platform used vTaiwan is a form of direct democracy.

And it allows citizens to directly shape new laws which could undermine the principle of representative democracy that is a central part of parliamentary democracy.

So for example, in the United Kingdom, you have a member parliament who represents a constituency a local area, and takes forward the views of their citizens in their constituency to parliament to put forward what generally people are thinking in there area and looking out for the people in their areas viewpoints and ideas on certain decisions are to be made.

It could also exclude older people or people on lower incomes who don't have access to digital devices.

So we have to consider different groups within society and how they might be impacted by the introduction of digital technology within the UK democratic system.

And to move on to our next case study, this case study is an e-Estonia.

And that is basically electronic Estonia, that's what the E stands for.

In 2005 Estonia became the first country in the world to hold nationwide elections using an online methodology.

And in 2007, it made headlines as the first country to use eye voting in parliamentary elections.

Unlike in many other countries, every Estonian, so it doesn't matter where they live whether it's in Estonia or in other places they have a state issued digital identity.

And as a result of that, they can then use this to authenticate people without physical contact which means you don't have to physically turn up to a voting station.

You've got this digital identity that you can use to make your vote count.

Estonia is a small country in Eastern Europe where the population of just over a million.

And it has been an independent country since 1990 when it's separated from the Soviet Union that held its first democratic elections as an independent country in 1992.

In 2005 as I've already said, it was the first country in the world introduce online voting when it allowed citizens to vote online in the general election that year.

Estonian citizens are able to vote online by registering their vote using their government ID card.

And every Estonian has a state issued digital identity and can provide digital signatures using their ID card.

98% of Estonians currently have an ID card.

Estonians are still able to vote in person and just to give you some figures about the elections, in the 2019 parliamentary elections 43.

4% of voters voted online.

So they chose to use their votes and do that online which had been an increase of 13% on the previous parliamentary elections in 2015.

So it's popularity rose.

So again, we're going to have a think about what we can add to our mind maps when we're talking about e-Estonia and I've placed it on here where I think it should go.

And I'd like you to add to your mind map the information we've just covered and to further your information that you have on digital technologies and how they use to within democracy.

So when you're ready, press pause, spend about five minutes, maybe a little less adding the information that you can, relating it to these digital technologies.

When you're ready, press play and we can continue with our lesson.

Welcome back and well done for adding that information.

We have looked at e-Estonia and essentially it's a really useful example of how a country has managed to roll out online voting and electronic voting.

So here we've linked it to electronic surveys and voting.

But we need to consider whether this could actually be applied in the United Kingdom.

Yes, it could.

In the sense that voting online would be more convenient and cheaper than voting in person.

And in lots of people over time suggest it would be a good way to potentially increase voter turnout and modernise our electrical system.

But in terms of increasing voter turnout we could look at young people and the fact that they are the least likely to vote at the moment.

So perhaps this would be a good way of encouraging younger groups of people to vote within different elections.

However, we don't have a system of ID cards in the United Kingdom and actually it's been a political discussion for many years about the idea of the ID cards.

And generally it's been found that there is a negative view towards them.

And so that would mean it's very difficult to verify citizens online votes and prevent voter fraud.

We also have a much larger population than Estonia which might make voting online, harder to manage.

And an online voting system could be susceptible to hacking which could undermine faith in the democratic process itself and cause people to question whether the result that we're getting is actually a true honest result.

Now, these different types of digital technologies and application to the democratic system in United Kingdom would impact people differently depending on what group of personnel and there're advantages and disadvantages for different groups of people.

We live in diverse communities which includes a large range of different people.

And when considering change, we have to look at how it might impact those different individuals and factors which might impact a decision to introduce more digital democracy, would include things such as age, employment, and disability.

So if we have a quick think about age 47% of 18 to 24 year olds turned out in the 2019 election, compared to 74% of those aged 64 and over.

The 18 to 24 category was the lowest turnout wise.

And some of our good that the an increase in digital technologies and digital democracy would allow those young people to feel more engaged, and participate more in democratic processes.

In terms of employment, if you are unable to afford internet, then obviously you're not going to be able to use digital technologies.

And therefore you won't be able to participate in this digital democratic way of working.

And then in terms of disability, some might say that this allows doors to be open to those who find going out more difficult in that they can access all the different things from home but when it comes to major elections or elections in local areas then some would argue there is the post of it.

And they do have the ability to take their time and put it into their schedule to be able to do that within their own time.

But it can't, they argued that it wouldn't make it easier for those who have certain disabilities to be able to vote online.

So we're going to draw this all together now in task four, considering whether these methods can be applied in the United Kingdom but I'd like you to think about the two case studies which do you think would work best and why? So we're going to answer the question and give reasons for the answer.

And I'd like you to use the mind map we've developed throughout this lesson to inform your response.

You should have all your different notes about digital technologies, the two case studies and also you should hopefully remember some of the advantages and disadvantages of those methods we've put on our mind map from the case studies and we can use those in your answer to create a balanced response.

I've put some helpful sentence starters here.

So you've got things like the UK could take on approaches used by other virtual Taiwan or electronic Estonia such as.

These would strengthen UK democracy because.

The difficulties of doing this might be.

And always remember to use some sort of conclusion.

So my opinion is that the best option would be to.

And then you need to come up with your own justified conclusion.

So pull all that information together.

And you could probably write about half a side A4, just pulling all those different ideas and coming to your own conclusion, using these sentence starters.

And if you'd rather not use them then that's okay too.

But then if you answer and consider different groups in our communities and how they might be impacted by digital democracy.

So you could have that layered effect within your response.

You're not only considering the different approaches and the strengths and weaknesses of them but also what the impact might be to different people within our communities.

So you're probably going to need to spend about 10 minutes on this putting together a well judged balanced response to that question.

So when you're ready, press pause, write your answer.

And then when you're ready to resume you can play the video again.

So well done.

And I've got a bit of feedback.

I haven't written it out for you because what you have written would probably be different to what I've written, because that's how it works.

What I have done is listed some of the key points I would have included with vTaiwan and e-Estonia.

So in looking at virtual Taiwan you've got points such as using online platforms to comment on and amend democratic issues.

It could increase participation and allow people to feel directly involved but it's non representative.

It's a direct form of democracy and it's not inclusive for all the groups that we spoke about, particularly perhaps those who are of the older generation, they wouldn't want to use those online platforms. With electronic Estonia you've got the concept of electronic voting which is very popular for some, the idea that you could just vote online.

It does save money and in an environment such as United Kingdom, where we have a debt to pay off and that might be a good thing.

We might encourage young people to vote.

And we looked at those statistics, by over or just over 40% of young people voted compare to over 70% of the older group, 64 and over voted in the last general election.

And also we've got this potential for fraud and or hacking because of the ID cards that would be needed and aren't currently available in the United Kingdom.

So hopefully you can use this as a bit of a checklist, go through your answer, see what you've included and maybe add in a few bits that you didn't quite remember.

But well done for giving that written task with go.

Well done for working with me through all of that today, you've done a brilliant job looking at digital democracy around the world.

We have considered what digital democracy looks like in the UK and the limited types of digital democracy we have.

And then we considered virtual Taiwan and the way that they allow people to consult on lawmaking and decisions in a real time way, that works for them and could potentially have some influence on how digital democracy develops in the United Kingdom.

And we've also looked to e-Estonia first place in the world to introduce elections available to all their citizens online.

And we considered some of the advantages and disadvantages, considering the different citizens to different groups of people we have in society and how it might impact people differently depending on their situation or background.

And finally, we did that task where you wrote a lovely piece considering the different methods and how they could apply to the United Kingdom.

And you came up with a justified conclusion of your own.

I do you have one more task that you could go away and complete and this is our takeaway task.

And it's to investigate this concept of digital democracy further.

And there are lots of other places around the world which use digital democracy currently.

And they include places such as India, Germany and Brazil, and you could research how they use digital platforms for democracy, and further either consider using the skills we learned in this lesson how they could be utilised in the United Kingdom.

And to further that you could consider a campaign.

So if you really feel compelled that this is something we should be doing in the United Kingdom, then you could write a letter to your local MP putting forward these views supporting your viewpoint with the evidence you gather from this lesson from your further research, to build a platform to suggest that the UK could potentially make better use of digital platforms. So if you feel empowered to do that then you could share that with OakNational.

And if you'd like to do that, then you can ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, and/or Twitter, taging in @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

And there's one last thing that I need you to do before you finish today and that is to go and complete the exit quiz now.

So well done for all your hard work and it's been a real pleasure teaching you.

I look forward to teaching you another citizenship lessons soon.