Understanding America’s Interested Bystander: A Complicated Relationship with Civic Duty
Venue
Google, Mountain View, CA (2015)
Publication Year
2015
Authors
Kate Krontiris, John Webb, Chris Chapman
BibTeX
Abstract
Among those who are interested in improving democracy in the United States, a
question that often comes up is how to engage the unengaged. To support the broader
ecosystem of individuals and institutions working hard to make our civic life more
inclusive and meaningful, we sought to contribute to these efforts by undertaking
needed and detailed user research about the attitudes and behaviors of average
Americans. In particular, this paper outlines a joint qualitative and quantitative
study for understanding “Interested Bystanders,” or that portion of the population
that is paying attention to the world around them, but not regularly voicing their
opinions or taking action. These are the findings of this research, conducted by
the Google Civic Innovation Team in 2014. As applied research, this work sought to
inform the design of civic-related products and services at Google and across the
civic technology community more broadly. In reporting what we learned, we also have
attempted to share how we learned it, and offer a case study for the use of
human-centered research to inform civic interventions.
