design research & service design
The Problem
A London School of Economics paper revealed that rural populations are more conservative, distrustful of democracy, and less engaged in non-conventional political actions like boycotts, petitions, etc.
Personal notes
This project represents my MDes Diploma work, giving me the invaluable opportunity to choose my own research topic. Understanding the roots of political disengagement in rural areas became a deeply personal journey for me. Growing up in Hungary, I witnessed firsthand the ever-increasing political divide. This divide is not unique to my country; it’s an issue that impacts democracies all over Europe.
Week 1-5: Discovery
Objective: to gain a comprehensive understanding of the socio-political dynamics influencing the political preferences of rural populations.
Method: thematic analysis to identify key issues in political engagement and attitudes.
Sources:
academic papers on agrarian studies and urbanormativity studies
existing practices in rural studies and civic technology
conference on the democracy sector
interviews with scholars and industry experts.
Key Insights
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Factors like depopulation, local characteristics, and individual traits such as age and education contribute to the political attitudes of rural population.
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Policies like CETA and CAP, neoliberal economics, and the declining economic importance of agriculture affect rural political weight.
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Urbanization leads to cultural and political marginalization of rural areas.
Emphasis has been put on mediating and facilitating communication between rural and urban communities to bridge the political and worldview divide.
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Technology and social media are both challenges and tools for democratic engagement.
The importance has been emphasised in addressing disinformation and enhancing democratic habits through digital platforms.
Reflecting on these weeks of desk research, I've identified a core issue: the lack of effective communication and political engagement in rural areas. Although this problem has economic and social roots, leveraging the technological advancements of our age should be an obvious solution to bridging the gap between rural and urban perspectives in the public sphares. Insights from scholars and conference seminars highlighted the importance of bridging communities and promoting democratic habits through digital platforms.
Week 6-8: Workshops
Format: 3-hour long online workshop using Miro
Purpose: to gather insights on political engagement on social media
Participants:
Session 1: 8 members of the general public as users
Session 2: 3 developers from the Code for Hungary
Activities
Sailboat: Intro discussions on democracy, politics by exploring what the participants like about the topic, what they think ideal, what are the barriers to reach the ideal state and what would help.
Impact Scale: Placing the new ideas based on the level of technological intervention required from a single feature, like a like button, toward more complex solutions requiring governmental interventions.
Tree: Exploring the existing features of Facebook and the human needs and desires that they meet. Brainstorming new possible features for a healthier political environment answering the participants’ painpoints.
Impact-Effort: Assessing and prioritizing ideas based on their effort and impact.
Key Insights
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Participants, particularly from the dev group, expressed doubts about the political success of interventions due to the assumed lack of political will.
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Effective digital participation requires trust in platforms and governance. However, experts cautioned against using existing social media for democratic processes because their business models prioritize engagement and profit over impartial governance, undermining trust. This highlights the need for new platforms designed with trust and democratic principles in mind.
The primary issues identified are the lack of effective communication and political engagement in rural areas. While online spaces might seem like an obvious solution, significant trust issues with platforms and governance, along with the economic environment that prioritizes social media platforms' business needs impede the possibilities of effective political engagement in digital public spaces.
Instead of solely creating inclusive digital platforms, I need a strategic approach that integrates trust-building, infrastructure improvements, and tailored engagement initiatives to foster effective and sustainable political participation in the society.
Week 9-10: Synthesis
Significance of Trust
Lack of trust in the political class and government can create a breeding ground for populist ideas. Trust is also crucial in digital platforms, which could help different social groups and citizens to engage more directly with each other and with their government, thus overcoming trust issues.
Desk Research Findings:
Lower trust is linked to radicalism, with distrustful individuals being 76% more likely to be classified as radicals.
Participation in voluntary organizations boosts political activity, and trust in others enhances positive perceptions of government performance and reduces perceived corruption.
Barriers of Political Will
Political will is vital not only for developing democracy and giving social groups more tools to advocate for themselves, but also in building the cases behind the issues of rural populations and other marginalized groups to be advocated.
Interview Insights:
An interview with a political scientist who is familiar with the dynamics of local politics revealed that political will can be visualized as a pyramid with four elements: leader, topic, critical mass, and issue.
During these weeks, the focus slowly shifted to visualising and synthetising research foundings, while addressing trust and political will, topics raised during the previous weeks of research.
The goal was visualizing frameworks capturing the essence of the topics and giving a hint about the possible interventions.
The foundaion of the first diagram was the outcomes of the generative workshop, while the second digaram was co-created during an interview.
Week 11-12: Theory of Change
Theory of Change
Improving trust in digital platforms could open up the opportunity to use them for political engagement, enhancing communication between government and citizens and among citizens themselves. This increased trust would significantly enhance political engagement and democratic participation in rural areas.
Vision Artefact
The Ministry of Social Trust emphasizes the government's responsibility to ensure the quality of democratic decisions and the political environment in which these decisions are made regardless its geographical location. It is a somewhat populist institution, which is an oxymoron in itself since populism usually erodes the institutions, but in this case, it’s meant to heal the eroded perception of governance and politics by acknowledging populist democratic demands.
Its pillars and potential interventions are derived from analyzing the goals, unmet needs, solutions, and barriers identified through workshops, interviews, and desk research. These issues vary from simple UI features to more complex concepts requiring new legislative environments or additional governmental responsibilities and functions.
Reflecting upon the complexity of this topic, I concluded this 3 months solo research in a hypothesis and vision artefact which could give a foundation for further investigation.
I needed to come up with a concept in which I can effectively communicate the needed intervention's complexity discovered throughout my research. Ministry of Social Trust is a vision artefact aimed at addressing trust deficits in digital platforms and governance to boost political engagement and democratic participation in rural areas.