Democratic Reflection: Nudging Citizens? Democratic Engagement with Political Election Debates

Abstract

Nudges are increasingly adopted by governments to promote social welfare, but there is an open debate on the ethics of nudges and their application in highly contested domains. We present a tool for nudging citizens? democratic engagement with political election debates. Democratic Reflection is a moment-by-moment second screen interaction technology for capturing audience feedback to time-based stimuli like speeches, TV debates, or video replays. While viewing the stimuli, users select from a matrix of icons, each describing a reflective nudge and instant audience reaction. Initial insights from the applications of this technology in the 2015, 2017 and 2019 UK elections, suggest that the reflective nudges enabled by Democratic Reflection can promote active engagement with politics, and may increase the willingness of people to be involved in political processes in the future.