Channel 4 is recruiting 20 teenage activists to take part in a nine-month project and television series.

Cross-platform creation Battlefront will see the youths trained up by marketers, advisers and campaigners.

They will push different ethical and political causes, primarily using social networks and websites.

Education commissioner Matt Locke said: "It will reflect how teenagers are using the web for the political causes that they are passionate about, rather than us asking for some top-down campaigning.

"We want to explore what campaigning means in the 21st Century, when people are realising they don't have to march a petition down to Downing Street."