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Centre for Digital CitizenshipInstitute of Communications Studies
The Internet, Web2.0 and ‘having your say’
Ann Macintosh
Professor of Digital Governance
Email: [email protected]
“Now is the time to shift our view of computers from communications medium to negotiation medium, from knowledge processing to interest processing” Carl Adam Petri, 1962
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Can digital technologies help citizens to participate in government as well as to elect it?
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Overview
Context: the need for deliberative engagement
What’s gone before: a decade of online public engagement
Socio-technical challengesOn-going research
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Context: Three starting pointsHay, C. 2007. Why we hate Politics. Cambridge. Polity Press.
Stoker, G. 2006. Why Politics Matters: Making Democracy Work. Palgrave Macmillan
Fishkin, J.S. 1991. Democracy and deliberation. Yale University Press.Dryzek, J.S. 2000. Deliberative democracy and beyond. Oxford University Press
Blumler, J.G. & M. Gurevitch 2001. The New Media and Our Political Communication Discontents: Cyberspace. Information, Communication & Society 4(1) 1-13.
Dahlgren, P. 2005. The Internet,
Public Spheres, and Political Communication: Dispersion and
Deliberation. Political Communication, 22(2) 147-162.
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Potential for technology to enhance democracy
Not a new research area: e.g.Dutton, W. H.: Political Science Research on Teledemocracy. Social Science Computer Review 1992Hague, B. N., & Loader, B. D. Digital democracy: An introduction. 1999
e.g. Recent survey: Panopoulou E., Tambouris E., Tarabanis K.: eParticipation
initiatives: How is Europe progressing? European Journal of ePractice 2009
Real-world online engagement initiatives
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Example from 2002
Macintosh A. & Smith, E. 2002. Citizen Participation in Public Affairs. Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Electronic Government eGOV2002. France.
http://itc.napier.ac.uk/e-consultant/scfrio/viewtopic.asp?TopicID=8
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2002 example: forum
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Example from 2007
Fagan, H., McCusker, P., Murray, M., Newman. D.R. & O’Donnell, D. (2007). Evaluation of the Houses of the Oireachtas Pilot e-Consultation for Proposed Broadcasting Bill. http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/econsultation/ECRG_Report.doc
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2007 example: forum
http://www.econsultation.ie/ec/econswip.nsf/(webstartpage)/5?opendocument
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2010 Example: Web2.0
http://crossroad.epu.ntua.gr/
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Potential for technology to enhance democracy –> so far not realised
Expecting too much of government & politicians
Macintosh, A., Coleman, S. & Schneeberger, A. (2009). eParticipation: The Research Gaps. In Macintosh, A. & Tambouris, E. (Eds), Electronic Participation: Proceedings of First International Conference, ePart 2009, LNCS 5694. (pp.1-11). Germany: Springer-Verlag. ISSN 0302-9743.
Expecting too much of technology
Expecting too much of citizens
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Complexity of policy development
How do you tackle urban deprivation?How do you end international drug trafficking?What do you do about climate change?
Rittel, H.W.J., and M. M. Webber. 1973. Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4:155-169
Not easily definedNo clear stopping rulesNo right or wrong approachNo clear measures of successAn iterative processSolution are discoveredEach are uniqueLevel of detail a matter of judgementStrong moral & political pressure against failure.
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Complexity of policy development
R. Roger (2009) Mapping Public Web Space with the Issuecrawler. In Brossard C. & Reber B. (Eds.), Digital Cognitive Technologies: Epistemology and Knowledge Society. London: Wiley. 115-126.
Policy issues discussed on social network sites
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Some socio-technical questions
Make sense of unstructured text Know what critical questions to ask Identify which issues are importantFacilitate reasoned contributionsDetermine relationships between
contributions to policy development
How to
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Argument mapping: making sense of complex problems
Visualisation language http://compendium.open.ac.uk/institute/community/showcase.htm#pubpol
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Example from Scottish Parliament: Banning smoking in public places
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Example from Scottish Parliament
Renton, A. & Macintosh, A. (2007). Computer Supported Argument Maps as a Policy Memory. The Information Society Journal, 23(2), 125-133
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IMPACT: Integrated Method for Policy making using Argument modelling & Computer assisted Text analysis
Argument mining– machine learning & data mining algorithms, to support
reconstruction of arguments from information sources.Policy modeling & analysis
– computational models of argumentation, to enable comparison between effects of different policy proposals.
Polling tool– computational models of argumentation, where questions
are generated automatically from existing debate.Argument analysis, tracking & visualization
Walton, D. (2006). Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation. Cambridge University Press.
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Summarising
The need for online deliberation around policy development
Current socio-technical design does not meet this need
Social networking sites are changing the shape of discussion on policy issues
Argumentation systems have the potential to provide a deliberative environment
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Conclusions
Coleman, S. & Blumler, J. G. (2009). The Internet and Democratic Citizenship. New York: Cambridge University Press
Macintosh, A., Gordon, T. F. & Renton, A. (2009). Providing Argument Support for eParticipation. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, (JITP).6(1), 43-59Okada, A., Buckingham Shum, S. & Sherborne, T. (Eds.), (2008). Knowledge Cartography: Software Tools and Mapping Techniques. T. Springer: Advanced Information and Knowledge Processing Series
On-going research on how argumentation systems can add value to participatory policy development
“How can vast numbers of people engage in collective talk without the voices of individuals being drowned out by the noise of the crowd?”
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Centre for Digital CitizenshipInstitute of Communications Studies
Thank you