Many political and economic discourses posit digitalisation as an important societal issue. Digitalisation has many political implications, as its effects permeate different areas of citizens’ lives. Policy initiatives at the EU level underline the amount of political attention dedicated to this topic. It is less clear what EU citizens think of this issue, and which factors drive their attitudes. This question remains unanswered for two reasons: 1) Existing research largely focuses on specific policies and domains rather than on the cross-cutting ensemble of digitalisation, and 2) many datasets do not link citizens' digitalisation attitudes with political aspects. Through Eurobarometer data, this project analyses citizens’ preferences regarding digitalisation and their attitudes on which level of government should tackle digitalisation.
This research is informed by a previous analysis which investigated the politicisation of digitalisation in party discourse at the national and EU level, to map both supply and demand-side factors on digitalisation as a political issue. This proposed research allows comparative insights into the characteristics and issue preferences of those who identify digitalisation as an important political issue. Together, the findings shed light on whether digitalisation is being politicised at all, and whether the arena of politicisation is at the national or European level. The results will provide insights into public opinion on digitalisation in the political realm, which has been scant in the academic literature but has important democratic implications. Understanding citizens’ perceptions of an emerging issue can avoid potential democratic shortcomings, such as a lack of responsiveness or increasing polarisation.