Direct democracy?
We wake today into a new political dawn. UKIP has won their first Parliamentary seat, and very nearly got another. Commentators from all sides of politics are, on one point, agreed: this is a big moment, and it feels that...
News & Insights
The Demos team and its work features regularly in the press on the key issues of the day. Read our statements and articles by our team here.
Scotland decides. What about Twitter?
At 8pm tonight head of the Better Together Campaign Alistair Darling faces SNP leader Alex Salmond in a televised debate about Scotland’s future. It’s the first, and only, debate between the two big hitters before Scotland decides the fate of...
A model for digital democracy
A sense that all citizens of a state have a stake, and a say, in the process of government is in some ways crucial to our sense of identity as citizens. It is something that history suggests we as a...
Monitoring misogyny
Women are more likely to be subjected to more bullying, hateful, abusive and threatening language on various social media platforms than men. In a fascinating study from 2006, researchers from the University of Maryland set up a host of fake...
The method in the madness
The idea began light-heartedly – it was an opportunity to road-test the real-time rapid response capabilities of our social media analysis software and methodologies, by applying them to the live debate on Europe between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage. The...
Tweeting the ballot
Barack Obama famously pioneered the use of social media as a campaign tool, to great effect. Demos is currently running a project to teach European third-sector organisations how to better use social media in order to improve turnout among under-represented...
The Twitter effect
Since the first Tweet was sent in 2006, Twitter has become the mouthpiece of almost 650 million users: a sizeable digital chorus with eyes and ears all over the world, providing a running commentary on almost any topic conceivable. These...