Information as a Tool of Political Interest in the Czech Repubulic

The present work concentrates on a segment of information whose socio-political importance is steadily increasing. Theoretical framework of the study is centred on conceptualization of the term 'information' and social significance of information in the contemporary world. The main part of this study focuses on first-time voters in the elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic that will take place in 2014. The necessary data about this specific group of future voters were acquired through printed, quantitative questioning based questionnaires. The questionnaires were distributed to the first-time voters by their teachers during regular lessons in various types of secondary schools. Subsequently, the collected data served as a basis for confirmation of the pre-stated hypotheses and for conceptualization of the 'model' average first-time voter in the 2014 elections to the Lower House of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. As was revealed by the research, the attitude of the future first-time voters towards politics and political affairs is to a large degree lukewarm. In forming their own political views and opinions they prefer information acquired through internet and television over alternative sources such as school or family. These and many other findings are the result of this study. They can and should serve to public institutions, political representatives, general public and first-time voters themselves as a basis for introducing such measures that would increase participation of younger age-groups in the political discourse. In this respect some elementary suggestions are offered in the end of this paper.