Young People and European Institutions: strategies and communication tools

Young Italians show a growing consensus towards the EU and recognize the great importance of voting, but there is still no real participation or involvement from citizens towards institutional structures or vice versa. This is the fundamental figure that emerged from the survey carried out in Italy before the last European elections (May, 2019) on a reference sample of about 300 people, aged between 18 and 33 years. The European communication strategies aimed to promoting a democratic involvement, with a bottom-up approach ahead of the elections, have shown an intrinsic weakness: in fact, the lack of knowledge of the campaign itself has led to a negative impact on the effectiveness of the results. If citizens have a positive image of the European institutions, they will acknowledge the importance and the advantages of belonging to the EU. They have confidence in its work and say they feel the strong influence of European policies on their lives, but now they have a low consideration of Europe and a lack of involvement in the choices underlying public policies. In this sense, it is essential to implement communication workflows in local contexts and adopt an integrated digital communication strategy, trying to facilitate symmetrical and participatory communication.