by georg.kiraly -

OFFF Conference 2023

Together we went to Barcelona to attend the OFFF Conference for 3 days. People from different corners of the creative industry told us about their profession, their career, their tasks and their passions. Several universal pieces of advice stuck with me:

– Never let yourself be dissuaded from doing what you enjoy.
– Don’t let clients, bosses or deadlines drag you down.
– Never stop being curious
– and mistakes are there to be learned from, everyone makes them.

It was especially inspiring to listen to designers from all over the world and hear about their daily agency life. Some of them are now so well known that they no longer work in agencies or are self-employed. I remembered them above all others: David Carson, Bureau Borsche, ZetaFonts Foundry and the Panic Studio from Latvia. At the end of the excursion we visited the studio of DomesticStreamers which was also a totally inspiring experience. Although I have worked in a few agencies before, I was very surprised by the joy, ambition and morals with which they worked there. That was very impressive.
It was really good to be surrounded by so much creativity and Spanish joie de vivre over such a long period of time. It was also very nice to get to know my design colleagues better within the class. All in all, a very successful excursion!

by georg.kiraly -

First ideas and directions how to go further… 

After the past blogposts, many possibilities have emerged on how to better include children and young people in democracy-related issues. The level of communication and the direction from which it comes is very important. No one wants to be talked down to or overwhelmed with complex explanations. In the following, I name a few ideas on how I can approach the topic as an interaction designer.

Social Media Channel

Designing a social media channel or maybe a tool kit for influencers to enhance young people’s engagement in democratic systems and processes can be a powerful way to reach a wider audience and inspire change. Key elements of such a channel or could include:

– Engaging Content: Providing content that is both educational and engaging, such as videos, podcasts, or interactive quizzes, can help young people learn about democratic systems and processes in a fun and accessible way.

– Influencer Involvement: Partnering with influencers who are passionate about democracy and civic engagement can help reach a wider audience and inspire change. Influencers can use their platform to raise awareness, share stories, and engage with their followers.

– Tools and Resources: Providing tools and resources, such as action plans, voting guides, or advocacy tools, can help young people take action and become more involved in the democratic process.

– Community Building: Building a community of young people who are interested in democracy and civic engagement can help provide a supportive and interactive environment for learning and action.

By providing engaging content, tools and resources, and a supportive community, a social media channel or tool kit designed for influencers can play an important role in empowering young people to take part in democratic systems and processes. Of course, the channel should also be visually appealing to guarantee a professional but also a personal/fun-looking appearance.

Gamification App

Gamification is a popular and effective way to engage young people in learning and taking part in democratic systems. A gamification app for this purpose could include features such as:

– Interactive Quests: By providing tasks and challenges related to political and civic topics, the app can help young people develop a deeper understanding and engagement with democratic systems.

– Virtual Representation: The app could include virtual simulations of political decision-making, allowing young people to experience the democratic process in a fun and interactive way.

– Social Interaction: Encouraging social interaction and collaboration through the app, such as team-based missions or debates, can help young people develop their communication and leadership skills.

– Rewards and Recognition: Providing rewards and recognition for accomplishments, such as virtual badges or points, can help motivate young people to continue learning and participating in democratic systems.

By combining education, engagement, and fun, a gamification app for democratic systems can help young people develop the skills and knowledge they need to become informed and active citizens.

Interactive Game for the classroom

Another solution could be an interactive game similar to the Peace Game. This would make it possible to teach children of primary school age about the importance of democracy. In a crisis-ridden time like the present, it is especially important to convince children and young people of their active participation. Even if this participation only means going to the voting booth every few years. Unfortunately, there are very obvious reasons why people are turning away from politics right now (corruption, miscommunication, shift to the right), although it is precisely in times like these that an active understanding of democracy is indispensable. Inclusion starts with information. If this information is acquired at an early age, people enter the official voting age with a democracy-friendly consciousness, which can only be an advantage for people and the state.

I realise with this topic that I am not quite at the end yet. There is still a lot to discover or research. I think it would be exciting to take up this topic again for my master’s thesis, let’s see what happens 😉

by georg.kiraly -

Social Media gets people involved!

Especially in the European Union, the inclusion of children and young people is very important. There are many initiatives, think tanks, platforms or networks that work to make politics or democracy accessible to children and young people. But if there are so many initiatives, why do we still have the problem described at the beginning? It seems as if the platforms are there, but unfortunately the information and communication does not (yet) reach the masses. This gives me the impression that perhaps the wrong communication channels are being used and that there is still more potential to reach children and young people more directly.

Bayrischer Rundfunk: Instagram Channel “news_wg”

News-WG is a information format of the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation on Instagram. It is a platform where young people can receive information about current political issues and events in Bavaria and Germany. The format leverages the popularity of Instagram to reach a young target audience and strengthen their political awareness. Its goal is to inspire young people for political issues and help them form their opinions and beliefs. News-WG provides a platform for young people to share and discuss their opinions and thoughts on current issues. The format is an example of how traditional media can expand and enhance their content and target audience through the use of social media. It shows the importance of reaching out to young people and giving them the opportunity to form and discuss their opinions and beliefs.

The News-Wg now has over 150,000 followers and has written almost 1300 articles to date. Probably not only the simple explanations but also the direct way of communicating with the followers are the recipe for the success of this political instagram-channel.

the hosts of the channel Helene Reiner, Sophie von der Tann und Max Osenstätter ©bayrischer Rundfunk

“Der Erfolg unseres Accounts macht deutlich: Junge Leute suchen auf Instagram nicht nur Oberflächliches. Sie haben wirklich Lust auf informative Inhalte.”

News-WG-Host Helene Reiner

“Young people have always been very political,” says Martin Fuchs, who advises governments on digital communication and monitors what is happening in social media. “Political and social debates don’t pass by even those who usually give make-up tips.” Moreover, working as an influencer also allows one to develop oneself.

His definition of being an influencer is not limited to the role of being an advertiser: “These are people who have built up a reputation and a community online, use this value to present themselves and then make influence visible in social issues, but also in the commercial sphere.”

Digital opinion leaders communicate informally and far away from organisations, which makes them appear more credible. Their potential is built on personality and proximity. Because they spend their time where young people spend their time: on the net. Especially with participation formats in which the community can ask politicians questions, they enable active political participation of the younger generation.

by georg.kiraly -

Good Practices Vol.2

The European Union is home to two outstanding initiatives aimed at promoting democracy and civic engagement among its youth population: the European Youth Parliament (EYP) and Democracy Alive. EYP provides a platform for young Europeans to come together to learn about politics and democracy, while Democracy Alive is a network of youth organizations advocating for the rights and interests of young people in Europe. Both initiatives are essential in empowering the next generation of Europeans to become informed and active citizens.

The European Youth Parliament (EYP)

The EYP is a non-profit organization that aims to promote intercultural understanding and European cooperation among young people. It is a youth-led organization that provides opportunities for young people to engage in debates and discussions about current European and global issues. The EYP was founded in 1987 and has since grown into a pan-European network with over 20,000 members.

EYP operates through a network of national committees in over 40 countries across Europe, and they organize events such as youth forums, workshops, and international sessions. During these events, young people participate in discussions, debates, and simulations of the European decision-making process.

The goal of EYP is to provide young people with the skills and knowledge they need to become active and informed citizens, and to encourage them to become involved in the political process at the European and national levels. Through its programs and activities, EYP aims to promote intercultural exchange and understanding, and to foster a sense of European identity and solidarity among young people.

The European Youth Parliament is a recognized partner of the European Parliament and other European institutions, and its programs and initiatives are designed to help young people develop the skills and knowledge they need to become active and engaged citizens in a rapidly changing world.

Democracy Alive

Democracy Alive is a European-wide network of youth organizations that work together to promote democracy, human rights, and social justice. The network was founded with the goal of empowering young people to engage in the democratic process and to become active and informed citizens. The network provides a platform for young people to exchange ideas, share experiences, and work together to address important political and social issues. Democracy Alive uses social media, as well as traditional methods of communication, to reach its target audience and to provide young people with the information and resources they need to get involved in the democratic process.

Some of the specific activities and initiatives of Democracy Alive include:

Advocacy: The network works to promote the rights and interests of young people by advocating for policies and legislation that support their well-being and empowerment.

Capacity building: Democracy Alive provides training and resources to its member organizations to help them build their capacity and become more effective in their advocacy and activism efforts.

Networking: The network provides a platform for its member organizations to network and collaborate with one another, sharing experiences and ideas and working together to achieve common goals.

Information sharing: Democracy Alive uses social media and other digital platforms to share information and resources on important political and social issues, helping young people stay informed and engaged.

Democracy Alive is an example of a successful network that is working to promote democracy, human rights, and social justice in Europe. By empowering young people to get involved in the democratic process, the network is helping to ensure that the voices of young people are heard and that their interests are represented in the political arena.

by georg.kiraly -

Good Practices Vol.1

The issue of education being able to create conditions for peaceful attitudes in young people is on the agenda of Governments, educators and communities. Although good practices, good-willing thematic networks and institutional programmes exist at local, national and international levels, not enough is done to connect these initiatives and to develop a more structured, systemic approach to what actually works well, in which situation and why. There are some projects, supportet by the European Union, I’d like to share here:

– CITIZED: It addresses four categories of target groups: policy makers and other stakeholders participating in the policy making process at the different institutional levels, teachers’ training organisations, school teachers and schools as organisations. The project started in December 2020 and will last until November 2023.

The innovative approach is based on three main aspects:
1) Integration of existing elements and development of “missing elements” that will facilitate policy implementation.
2) Process innovation by bringing the issue of teachers training for democratic citizenship competences in a multi-stakeholder transnational debate involving policy makers, teacher training institutions, teachers and families and reviewing international good practices in view of its potential transferability;
3) Co-creation of innovative instruments and approaches to contextualise existing models.

– PEACE GAMES: The Peace Games consortium aims to contribute to the development of citizenship, democratic and social competences by using the full potential of creativity through game-based learning in formal and informal learning. Creativity stands at the core of this project as it is considered both as a way to acquire civic and social key competences, and as a competence to acquire and develop in itself via the use and the development of “self-made” games oriented toward Peace Education. Co-founded by the Erasmus+ Programme, Peace Games aims at diffusing these competences in learners and at helping teachers to make good educational use of games. This is organised through the identification, assessment and support to the use of relevant games (online or in face-to-face) oriented to civic competences, intercultural communication and conflict transformation already existing and provide guidelines and advices for the development of new “self-made” games relevant for particular contexts.

Children playing the world peace game together

– PERFECT: The Project has the ambition to propose and experiment a holistic method to develop key transversal competences (cultural awareness and expression, citizenship, multilingual, digital, entrepreneurship, personal, social and learning) through a transnational experience of developing a cultural product (a piece of theatre, a musical, an exhibition including students’ performance, a multimedia work, etc.) including historic research, literature and art history, music, performing arts and digital skills. Teachers of different disciplines will concur to the design and development of these projects/products involving two classes in each partner school. Therefore, the core set of activities will be implemented within, around and between the partner schools with the methodological and management support of the other partners (European Networks like FREREF, OBESSU, IPA, the IIHL with its hosted Education Inspiring Peace Lab, the Ministry of Education of Malta).

Source: http://eiplab.eu/

by georg.kiraly -

How can I affect this situation as a designer?

In general, this topic is ideal for illuminating it from different sides and disciplines. After a short socio-demographic introduction, I will devote myself to the design aspect of this topic. How can I as a designer tackle the problem already described and contribute to a positive change with my skills/mindset?

One of the most famous techniques or tools of Designer is “Design thinking”. It is concerned with solving problems through design. The idea being that the future output of the process will provide a better answer than the one already available or if nothing is available – something entirely new. It is an unconstrained methodology where it is possible that the designer (or design team) will work on many possible solutions at once. It enables designers to consider the problem in many different ways and speculate on both the past and future of the problem too. This is in contrast to the scientific method of problem solving which requires a highly-defined problem which focuses on delivering a single solution.
So design has moved more into the problem solving space. It’s not like designers weren’t solving problems before, but this was limited to “design problems”. Design problems are problems one would traditionally call a designer to solve: graphic design, interface design, interaction design, industrial design, architectural design. I don’t want to over-generalize, but the focus had been on solving problems around form, esthetics, interaction, space. Design thinking created an opening for designers to move from the more esthetically focused space to the problem solving space. Designer solve problems in a certain way and that way could now be transported to other fields of problem solving.

The famous double diamond shows the a general technique of adressing issues.

So whatever the outcome might be, I’m aware that there can be various solutions – analogue and digital – for this problem. This research is the start of a maybe even bigger project. So I’ll try to articulate a vision. An answer to the question: “Why am I working on this topic?” My response would be:

“I want to find a way to strengthen the awareness of younger people to politics and their democratic environment.“

But let’s focus again on the research. What are similar projects that already worked on that topic? You can read about that in my next blog post.

Source: https://medium.com/design-leadership-notebook/design-is-more-than-problem-solving-7e290535927c

by georg.kiraly -

Whats the actual status of awareness of younger people?

The renowned institute for opinion polls “Gallup” conducted a detailed survey among about 1000 young people (< 30 years) on behalf of the State Secretary for Youth Claudia Plakolm (ÖVP). The results were interesting and are summarised below.

It should be emphasised that this study aimed at a broad cross-section of the population. This means that demographic diversity and balance were taken into account among the respondents of this study. Although 56% of the 14 to 30 age group are interested in political life, only 16% are very interested, a figure that clearly has room for improvement.

  • The internet is clearly the first place to go for political information; TV and social media follow at a certain distance. The value for TV is surprising here, since TV consumption in this age group has been declining for years in favour of streaming offers; however, the use of TV counters may also have been subsumed here. Daily newspapers clearly lag behind TV, but still achieve a usage share of 39%.
  • In the area of social media, Instagram dominates very clearly ahead of Facebook and YouTube; TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat are, as expected, in the youngest group.
    TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat are, as expected, very significant in the youngest group aged 14 to 19. To what extent do such media, which are primarily used for
    entertainment, are actually used for political information.
  • Not surprisingly, people consider their own parents to be the most credible source of political information. Statistically, TV, daily newspapers, school/teachers, radio and friends follow at a certain distance. The internet is already lagging behind somewhat here, with social media and influencers at the bottom. This shows that despite intensive use of social media in this age group, people are aware of the credibility problems of these media (44% of users consider them to be less or not credible).

In my opinion, the following three graphs are the most interesting ones. It shows which topics are the most famous ones for people under 30, which channels are used to consume information about politics and which ones are the most credible ones:

Through which channels is political content received most? (by age)
How is the credibility of these sources assessed?
How should the focus of policy change in the future?


Quelle: https://www.bundeskanzleramt.gv.at/bundeskanzleramt/nachrichten-der-bundesregierung/2022/11/demokratiemonitoring-zeigt-interesse-der-jugend-an-politik.html , am 24.1.2023

by georg.kiraly -

Where does the Generation Z come from?

The focus in these texts, which are strung together, is placed on the so-called “Gen Z”. These are people born between 1997 and 2012. They are mostly the children of Generation X. As a result, various social anthropological characteristics can be attributed to this still young generation. Their characteristics are reaching from extremely good abilities to handle digital technologies to the imposed ability to handle performance pressure and suffering and/or profit from an academic world.

Almost a third of all people worldwide belong to Generation Z, and they are the ones who could make our society fit for the future – if only they were allowed to. Today’s 10- to 27-year-olds are characterised by concerns about their environment and the highest rate of mental illness to date. At the same time, they are more networked and technologically fit than any generation before them – they are the first true digital natives.

But with values or worldview was given to the Gen Z from their parents. While the technical devices have changed, the way of consumptions stayed the same or increased by the ongoing globalization. Status symbols developed into objects of desire and were more important than political engagement. With the arrival of the television as a mass medium, Generation X experienced the transition from analogue to digital media. Later, e-mail and the mobile phone also represented important means of communication. The uncertain times surrounding the East-West conflict created a certain pessimism.

Generation Z’s anxieties are reinforced by the fact that they perceive news in a different way than their parents or grandparents did at the same age; young people consume content on social issues and events almost constantly. With just a smartphone, people can access a buffet of reports 24/7 through social media, search engines, news sites and television. Social media is fast overtaking traditional news channels among young people. According to broadcast regulator Ofcom, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube are now the three most used news sources for UK young people, while older generations who grew up consuming news through print media, radio and television still prefer these traditional channels.

» Among 14- to 25-year-olds, TikTok is even the most-used app, ahead of YouTube and Instagram. “This is huge when you consider that TikTok is only four years old,” says study author Magnus Folten from WeCreate. “No platform has grown that fast before.” Nearly 18 percent of the time 14- to 37-year-olds spend on their mobile phones goes to TikTok. Instagram, YouTube and TikTok combined account for more than half. The latter services in particular have lost out to the competition from Beijing. What interests young people most in social media are not so much the socially relevant topics: According to the survey, environmental and climate protection came in a distant ninth, while fashion, video games and music were mentioned much more frequently. «
writes the german newspaper “Der Spiegel” on the 02.12.2022.

by georg.kiraly -

How to raise awareness of politics among people of younger ages (Gen Z & Alpha)

It is said that the future of a society lies in its children. Besides the focus on personal development or the management of several crises is there an awareness or interest of the political future of our society? What are the influences or reasons that younger people are avoiding or focusing on political topics?

Two world wars, several economic crises, slave trade, archaic sexism, monarchy, autocracy, democracy – to name just a few points that have shaped the European continent. Sometimes it seems as if some of the traumas of history are forgotten after a short time and the mistakes are constantly repeated. But who is responsible for breaking this cycle of experiencing and forgetting? Is it fair for a society to always look to the youngest generation and leave the future to the children of the third millennium? If you look at the latest voter flow analyses of the last National Council elections in Austria (of the under-30s), you can see that society is slowly drifting apart. The parties of the centre are becoming less and less interesting for various reasons and the camps of the political fringes are slowly gaining ground. This development is certainly not bad per se – but when you look at the issues or the way politics is communicated, you sometimes feel like you’ve been transported back in time.

But what experience and history teach us is that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history and acted on the lessons that could have been learned from it.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)

In my opinion this quote still fits pretty well. It is up to us as a society to pass on the knowledge and experience we have gained. But what about the willingness of Generation Z or Alpha to absorb and use existing knowledge, or are these generations in particular already severely underestimated? What factors play a role when children or young people engage with the topic of history or politics for the first time or turn away from it? I would like to deal with these and other questions in my future research, because I think that a peaceful future should be an interesting topic for all of us.

My motivation for the project is to raise the political awareness of children and young people. I think it is wrong that young voters today are seen as a potential electorate for political parties, but are not really interested in issues that affect young people. This state of affairs creates disenchantment and weakens confidence in our democratic apparatus.

It is this state of affairs that I will be analysing over the coming weeks. I will focus on young people’s interest, disenchantment and enthusiasm towards political content. When is information interesting, what are the social backgrounds behind various opinions and to what extent can one react to this topic as an interaction designer?

After collecting some information on the topic, I would like to focus on my possibilities as a designer. I am convinced that as designers we share a certain quality – creativity. Through creative ways of interaction it becomes possible to target specific groups in society. There are various ways to share information or stimulate discourse. I am curious to see where my research will lead me and what kind of discussion can be concluded from it.

© afta putta ganawan, pexels.com 2022