“It can’t get any worse”: An online forum listening exercise revealing how people talk about poverty now
In 2023, Demos and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation collaborated on an exploratory pilot project to investigate:
- What can we learn from social media about people’s experiences of poverty and hardship in the UK?
- How can these learnings be scaled or tested in the future?
Following a successful trial, we have extended this work into a year long programme consisting of four ‘waves’. Over the course of 2024, we are taking periodic samples of the online conversation to track how people are talking about their experiences, and what insights social media listening can support for better policy development which puts people’s needs and lived experience at its heart.
In May 2024 we launched our Wave One findings: ‘This system is rigged’. In August 2024, we launched Wave Two: ‘Fight Like Hell’, with updates to our methodology for gathering social media insights in this area.
In this Wave Three deck, we present the final of our three-part mini series capturing fresh perspectives for 2024, which cover the following areas:
- Politics and the general election
- Navigating government support services
- Impact of financial hardship on relationships
- Unstable living conditions
- Physical and mental health struggles
In Wave Four, we will take a retrospective look over the last 14 years of government up to August 2024, reflecting on various policy shifts and what these have meant for individuals living in financial hardship.