Youth, Politics & Civic Participation: the 'Manifesto Machine'

Abstract

We present the Manifesto Machine, a collaborative writing environment for drafting and designing manifestos. In this instance, we report on a workshop with a group of local youths. We used the environment as a thought probe for provoking reflections on politics and civic participation. Our insights indicate that while there is a tendency to view youths as apolitical, there is scope for using such a tool to encourage active discussion and engage communities around the topics that affect them.

Full text

Youth, Politics & Civic Participation:
the ‘Manifesto Machine’
Sónia
Matos
†
ITI/LARSyS, M-ITI
Funchal, Portugal
sonia.matos@m-iti.org
Simone
Ashby
ITI/LARSyS, UmA
Funchal, Portugal
simone.ashby@m-iti.org
Ricardo
Rodrigues
M-ITI
Funchal, Portugal
ricardojoaofreitas@gmail.com
Julian
Hanna
ITI/LARSyS, M-ITI
Funchal, Portugal
julian.hanna@m-iti.org
!
!
ABSTRACT
https://doi.org/10.1145/3328320.3328374https://doi.org/10.1145/3328320.3328374We
present the Manifesto Machine, a collaborative writing
environment for drafting and designing manifestos. In this
instance, we report on a workshop with a group of local youths.
We used the environment as a thought probe for provoking
reflections on politics and civic participation. Our insights
indicate that while there is a tendency to view youths as apolitical,
there is scope for using such a tool to encourage active discussion
and engage communities around the topics that affect them.
CCS CONCEPTS
•
Human-centered computing (HCI): Miscellaneous.
KEYWORDS
Society and HCI; youth; learning; activism; civic engagement;
collaborative writing environments.
ACM Reference format:
Sónia Matos, Si mone Ashby, Julian Hanna and Ricardo Rodrigues. 2019.
Youth, Politics & Civic Participation: the ‘Manifesto Machine’. In
Proceedings of ACM Communities and Technologies conference
(C&T’19). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 4 pages.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3328320.3328374
1 Introduction
There is a tendency to perceive youths (ages 15 to 24) as
disinterested and disaffected from politics and civic life. While this
is partially true, recent research [12] [5] suggests that the younger
generation participates in new and diverse ways, as recent events
in Parkland, Florida have helped to further illustrate [13]. In
response, we present insights from sociotechnical interventions
with a group of local youths from Madeira, Portugal.
In a two-part workshop, we introduced the Manifesto Machine
(MM) a collaborative environment for drafting and designing
manifestos [1]. Th e MM is intended for a broad audience;
nevertheless, here we present our efforts to use the environment
with youths as a way of opening a ‘discursive space’ [9] where
participants can reflect on what they stand for and why, and how
their beliefs intersect with the beliefs of others
2 Youth and Political Participation
In her recent book, Briggs [5] asks whether ‘politics and youth
have become an oxymoron’. In Madeira Island, Portugal, the
setting of our workshop, this perception echoes the European
context [2]. However just as [2] and [5] suggest, recent
sociological analysis of youth - and the degree to which they
participate in politics and civic life - questions a positioning of
this generation as apolitical. In fact, some suggest that a labelling
of youths as ‘passive, narcissistic, self-motivated and
individualistic’, is simply inaccurate [12]. Instead, studies have
shifted towards an understanding of politics as an arena that has
lost its capacity to engage the interest of this demographic [2].
EU statistics show that, in fact, youths do not entirely shy away
from politics. The latest Eurobarometer survey “European Youth”
suggests that 63% of 13,454 young respondents (ages 15 to 30)
voted in recent elections [8]. At the same time, there is an
indication that younger generations are shifting their attention
away from the traditional political mechanisms, such as elections
and political parties [2]. Younger generations continue to be
vested in civic and social issues, despite a waning interest in
‘mainstream’ [5] or ‘elite’ [2] politics as a way to tackle these
issues.
Such a phenomenon is largely owing to the rise of social media,
where protesting and campaigning have acquired a new
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C&T 2019, June 3–7, 2019, Vienna, Austria
© 2019 Association for Computing Machinery.
ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-7162-9/19/06…$15.00
https://doi.org/10.1145/3328320.3328374

C&T’19, June, 2019, Vienna, Austria
Matos et al.
dimension and format [11] [5], such as the rise of #hashtag-driven
movements [6]. Instead of enrolling in political parties, younger
generations prefer to build alliances with like-minded individuals
and communities through social media [2] [7] [8]. From the
perspective of community-based design, we believe that the above
scenario opens a window of opportunity in the design of
sociotechnical interventions that, more than a solution, invite
communities towards modes of discussion, debate and reflection
[3] [4].
3 !e Manifesto Machine
In the current iteration of the MM (Figs. 1, 2), phrases often used
in manifestos appear in searchable drop-down lists, arranged by
rhetorical category on the left of the canvas. The user can drag
and drop text elements onto the canvas and position them as
desired. Users can also free-type in the canvas and add their own
words and phrases to the ‘My Words’. Sliders allow the user to
choose from a curated selection of open-source fonts, and control
size, leading, tracking, and kerning. Color is manipulated in the
same way, governing the hue, saturation, and lightness for both
text and background. There are additional options to reverse or
select a random color scheme (opposite complementary colors,
based on color theory), and to save, share or adjust screen size.
Font manipulations happen in real time with browsing. For the
canvas, both portrait and landscape views are possible, with
aesthetic choices extending to the entire interface, including
control panels, to minimize distraction.
4 !e Workshop
Workshop sessions took place in the city of Funchal, Madeira
Island, hosting a total of thirteen undergraduate students
currently enrolled in the Design program at the University of
Madeira: ten first-year and three second-year students, divided
into four groups.
Session 1 opened with an introduction to the manifesto, its
history, contemporary examples and fundamental principles.
Next, we encouraged participants to run through a set of ten
questions (see below). Participants were invited to select the
questions they would most like to debate, or alternatively to
respond to each one, as the issues raised were interlinked. This
activity took approximately 50 minutes, followed by a coffee
break, during which we ensured that all groups had the MM
working on their personal computers. We also used the coffee
break to present the MM collaborative environment. During the
final hour of Session 1, student groups used the MM to write a
manifesto inspired by the discussion that followed from the initial
set of questions.
Questions:
(1) What are your biggest concerns in life?
(2) Can you relate your biggest concerns to the broader social
political context of your country or region?
(3) Enumerate some of the key-topics that politicians should
address.
(4) Do you feel that young people have a stake in society?
(5) Do you feel connected to politics be that on the regional or
national level?
(6) Do you discuss politics? What kind of politics?
(7) Do you think there should be a greater effort to encourage
young people to understand the relevance of politics in their
lives?
(8) Do you consider yourself and engaged citizen?
(9) Do you think that universities should do more to educate
students on politics, governance and civic processes?
(10) Do you think that the university curriculum should motivate
students to be more questioning and challenging?
Figure 1 & 2: The MM
collaborative writing
environment.
In Session 2, participants were invited to present their manifestos,
with a final discussion recap by each group, lasting just under one
hour. One of the four groups was not present during this session.
Group A, with three members, selected questions 4, 7, 8, 9 and 10
that focused on the involvement of youth in political life. When
writing their manifesto, this group used the notes taken during
their discussion (Figure 3). Satisfied with their result, both
textually and visually, Group A concluded that the MM helped
them to achieve a desired visual language and rhetorical style.
During our conversation, participants also pointed out that the
questions had helped to direct their discussion. Group A
demonstrated relative ease when using the MM to write a
manifesto. This group only required extra support when using the
color slider. When operating th e slider both the color of the
background and the color of the letters change in accordance and
by presenting opposing complementary hues. Both Group A and
Group B (presented below) were not content with this constraint
and wished for greater flexibility when selecting the colors of
their manifesto.
Group B (Figure 4, 5), with four members, discussed all 10
questions. However, in line with Group A, it was questions 7, 8, 9
and 10 that aligned more closely with their interests, in this case,
education and politics. As with the previous group, Group B also
recognized that the questions helped guide their discussion which
began with a reflection on how youths feel undervalued by the
broader society. They believe that this results from a view of
youths as immature and inexperienced, an impression that has a
negative impact on how adults value their ideas and opinions. As

Youth, Politics & Civic Participation
C&T’19, June, 2019, Vienna, Austria
an example, this group pointed to their current education system
that does not sufficiently appreciate or take into account their
perspective.
Both Group A and B also felt that universities do little to
incentivize students to actively participate in society, and to better
understand their civic duties and responsibilities. They believe
that this has a negative impact on youth interest and engagement
in current politics because it remains an abstract concept for them.
Group A further recognized that the present view of politics is
bound to an elitist view (i.e. that it is solely the business of
politicians) and therefore not sufficiently connected to the real
value of democratic politics, which should be much broader and
more connected to all aspects of civic life. Finally, this group
raised the idea that it is through everyday examples that politics
can be valued and better understood by youths. This led to a
discussion of the university curriculum, which they believe does
little to promote a deeper understanding and involvement in
political and civic life among students. Group A’s discussion
dovetailed nicely with Group B's perspective that the curriculum
is a formal tool that fails to connect students’ experience to the
reality of life and learning.
Figure 3: Group A’s discussion during session 1.
Group C (Figure 6) chose to respond to all of the questions, 1 to
10, and only afterwards defined a specific topic of interest. In this
case, participants decided to focus on the university curriculum.
This group was less motivated to discuss possible connections
between the university curriculum, civic participation and
political life. Their choice was to focus on a more holistic
discussion of how the curriculum prepared them for a career in
the field of Design after graduation. This group was not so keen
to develop a discussion around the topic proposed for the project
which reflected the group’s apparent lack of interest in the
political domain. However, and just as Group A and B, Group C
used the MM with relative ease and did not require extra support
when using the collaborative writing environment. However, and
contrary to the other two groups, Group C did not identify
possible improvements to the MM.
Figure 4: Group B using the Manifesto Machine.
Figure 5: Manifesto Group B.
Figure 6: Group C’s discussion during session 1.

C&T’19, June, 2019, Vienna, Austria
Matos et al.
4.1 Feedback
By the end of Session 1, we invited participants to complete a
short online survey, individually, anonymously, and in their own
time.
From the 11 responses that we received, it was clear that the
majority of participants had never written a manifesto. However,
most felt that using th e MM to write one was a positive
experience. More than half of the respondents identified the actual
task of writing a manifesto as the most valuable achievement,
while a smaller number said that they enjoyed learning about the
manifesto as a means of express ing ideas. In terms of obstacles,
respondents identified some points worth considering in future
iterations of the environment and workshop design: (1)
brainstorming, as it was a novel task; (2) difficulty following some
of the questions; (3) limited options in terms of design (currently
the MM uses text only and complementary colors); (4) writing the
actual manifesto, as well as finding an appropriate language and
style; (5) lack of time.
5 Discussion and Future Work
The aim of our workshop was twofold: first, to explore work with
a local community as a potential audience for the MM and second,
to test wh ether our approach to the workshop is appropriate for
young adults under the age of 25. For this same reason, our
discussion will focus less on the technical aspects of the MM.
Not all groups engaged in all sessions and with the theme ‘youth,
politics and civic participation’, although all were able to
successfully use the MM’s collaborative writing affordances to
some effect. Results from the two groups demonstrating higher
levels of engagement with workshop tasks show that as a
sociotechnical intervention, the MM offers opportunities for
reflection on the current involvement of youths with civic and
political life.
As for the workshop itself, and in line with an earlier version
conducted with a group of adults, our sessions with youths
demonstrate that connecting participants to their own stories is a
successful way of fueling the writing process. The ten questions
posed at the beginning of Session 1 were crucial for kick-starting
discussion and helping groups to find a common theme. This
insight suggests that key audiences require more direct support
for the type of discussion that precedes effective manifesto
writing, and that the MM might be enhanced by integrating a set
of exploratory questions within the environment itself.
More importantly, working with this group uncovered an
untapped potential for the MM as tool to be used by local
educational communities. While the students did not
acknowledge an immediate link between the MM and the
curriculum, we believe that this was partially due to the limited
duration of the workshop and the fact that activities were
conducted outside of classroom activities. Therefore, our next step
will be to explore and position the MM as an educational tool, and
one that has the potential for integrating classroom activities in a
way that spurs meaningful discussion of both local and global
topics. This next set of efforts will be done in close collaboration
with both students and teachers and over a more extended
duration.
Finally, we believe that the introduction of the MM into local
educational environments dovetails nicely with the reemergence
of the manifesto - a genre once considered outdated [10] that is
again making headlines [13] particularly as young activists and
artists embrace political engagement, discover their voice, and
amplify their concerns with both local and global issues through
social media.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We gratefully acknowledge the support provided by Dr. Elisa
Bertolotti from the Design program at the University of Madeira
as well as her students for participating in this study. This project
was developed with financial support from LARSyS.
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