Demos

The last decade has witnessed a dramatic increase in citizens using the internet to find health advice and share health experiences, ranging from official accredited advice such as NHS Choices to un-moderated, citizen-led chat rooms and forums. They vary greatly from a helpful source of support, and advice for patients and citizens, to very dangerous and inaccurate information.

Overview

At least 49,000 children in the UK have a life-limiting or life-threatening illness, and as many as 800,000 are living with a disability.

As the election campaigns get underway, there is a new battleground: Twitter. Tweets are the newest weapons in the political arsenal, and Demos CASM is partnering with the Sunday Times to cover this new digital side of politics and campaigning.

The Digital Democracy Series: how technology can reconnect people with politics.

The end of military operations in Afghanistan last year brings to a close over a decade of significant conflict in the Middle East. The human cost of that and other recent engagements has been great, not least in terms of the large number of Armed Forces personnel who have been wounded or are returning home with a disability. Back home, the thirteen-year course of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has seen support for returning ex-military personnel rise up the public agenda – a fact attested by... Читать дальше...

Social media could transform how we understand society. Social media platforms produce information about social life unlike anything we’ve had before – bigger, rich, and often in real-time. If we can hear what social media is saying, it could transform how we understand attitudes, our priorities, hopes, criticisms and fears.

The Early Intervention Foundation, Cabinet Office and the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission are conducting a review of the evidence base behind the skills variously referred to as Skills for Life and Work, character, social and emotional skills and non-cognitive skills, and what works to help young people develop these skills. A Glossary of the key skills and terminology is available here.

Demos is currently undertaking an evaluation of the organisation UpRising, which provides leadership training to young people from diverse backgrounds to help them achieve their ambitions and goals.

Levels of entry into professional/managerial occupations are one measure of how open a society Britain is becoming. With increasing focus on British Muslims over the past ten years, including claims by some of Islamophobia in British society, this project investigates whether British Muslims are underrepresented in the ‘higher professions’.

OVERVIEW

Cynicism towards politicians and political parties has grown steadily in the past 30 years.  In 1986, only one in ten Britons said they ‘almost never’ trust governments to place the needs of the nation above the interests of their own party: in 2012 that had risen to one in three. Voting turnout has declined by an average of 10 per cent since 1970. In 1987, 76 per cent Britons believed voting was everyone’s duty; by 2011, this had fallen to 62 per cent.

Younger voters appear... Читать дальше...