Eparticipation

Many advocates of deliberative democracy see in the Internet a new opportunity for the development of public spaces, public spheres, and places where deliberation can take place. An important element of the notion of the public sphere in general and of deliberation specifically, is the quality of the debate. In the past decade, many studies have been conducted to evaluate online discussions in light of the ideal notion of the public sphere. However, a wide gap exists between theoretical approaches and the actual operationalization of such theories for empirical research. In an attempt to bridge this gap we develop a method for examining the extent to which Internet forums meet the normative requirements of rational-critical debate, reciprocity, and reflexivity. The methodological approach consists of a textual analysis of the contributions made to an online forum. The coding scheme presented in this article is based on a case study (UK Online) and guided by the theoretical notions of deliberative democracy.

Talking politics online is not exclusively reserved for those spaces dedicated to politics, particularly the everyday political talk crucial to the public sphere. However, past net-based public sphere research has focused mostly on political spaces thereby neglecting an array of other genres. The aim of this article is to move beyond politically oriented communicative spaces by investigating political talk within the British reality TV discussion forum Wife Swap. The purpose is to see whether a forum dedicated to reality TV provides the communicative space, content, and style for politics that extends the public sphere. The central question is whether it fulfils the requirements of rationality and ‘decent’ deliberation. Moreover, the analysis moved beyond a formal notion by investigating how expressives influence the more traditional elements of deliberation. The findings revealed that Wife Swap participants engaged in political talk that was often deliberative. Moreover, it was a space where the use of expressives played a key role in enhancing such talk.

This paper lays the groundwork for a comprehensive typology in uncovering the factors influencing the degree of shift towards e-democracy. The paper proposes an interaction model of factors in the analysis of e-democracy by examining the public sector, the private sector and the individuals. This interaction model is then used to discuss pertinent socio-economic and political impacts of e-democracy in Estonia. The discussion hopes to shed light on the obstacles and difficulties of achieving e- democracy and paves the way for future analysis of e-democracy implants in other countries.

This chapter reflects, from a holistic perspective, on the challenges surrounding the development of eParticipation in Europe, with special focus on EU programs. To this end, first, we assess the field’s practical and theoretical achievements and limitations, and corroborate that the progress of eParticipation in the last decade has not been completely satisfactory in spite of the significant share of resources invested to support it. Second, we attempt to diagnose and shed light on some of the field’s systemic problems and challenges which are responsible for this lack of development. The domain’s maladies are grouped under tree main categories: (1) lack of a proper understanding and articulation with regard to the ‘Participation’ field; (2) eParticipation community’s ‘founding biases’ around eGovernment and academy; and (3) inadequacy of traditional Innovation Support Programmes to incentivise innovation in the field. In the context of the ‘Europe 2020 Strategy’, the final section provides several recommendations that should contribute to enhance the effectiveness of future European eParticipation actions.

The developing 'global' network of computers, popularly referred to as the net, has sparked enthusiastic claims that this new medium holds the potential to revolutionise democracy. Central to this rhetoric is the concept of cyberspace. This virtual meeting place, created by computer networks, enables public interaction and information sharing. It is seen as providing the basis for the revitalisation of the public sphere and democracy. This article explores this prospect in relation to the political economy of the medium's ownership and control. I argue that the net's democratic potential is being limited by the rapid colonisation of cyberspace by capital. As a result, more than universal access to the net will be required to fulfil its democratic promise. Spaces for deliberative interaction in cyberspace also need to be protected and enhanced. Yet, democratisation beyond cyberspace may not automatically follow. Researchers and policy makers must pay greater attention to the systemic impediments involved. This, I conclude, is prerequisite to realising the democratic potential of the net.

"Τον Ιανουάριο του 2009, η εφαρμογή κοινωνικής δικτύωσης Facebook έφτασε στους 175 εκατομμύρια ενεργούς χρήστες, ενώ το Μάρτιο του 2012 η εταιρία ανακοίνωσε ότι οι χρήστες της ανέρχονται πλέον σε 900 εκατομμύρια περίπου. Ο αριθμός αυτός των χρηστών αντιστοιχεί στο τριπλάσιο περίπου του πληθυσμού των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών (300 εκατομμύρια περίπου) και στο πενταπλάσιο περίπου του πληθυσμού της Βραζιλίας (190 million). Την ίδια στιγμή, κάθε λεπτό που περνάει μεταφορτώνονται στο δίκτυο Youtube πάνω από 10 ώρες υλικού σε βίντεο, ενώ ο ιστότοπος για το διαμοιρασμό φωτογραφιών και εικόνων Flickr παρέχει πρόσβαση σε πάνω από 3 δισεκατομμύρια φωτογραφίες, καθιστώντας τη σύγκριση με την περίφημη συλλογή των 300.000 εκθεμάτων του μουσείου του Λούβρου στο Παρίσι απλά ανούσια (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).
Σύμφωνα με πρόσφατες έρευνες, 75% των χρηστών του Διαδικτύου χρησιμοποιούν τα «κοινωνικά μέσα» ή «μέσα κοινωνικής δικτύωσης», όπως αλλιώς ονομάζονται είτε διαβάζοντας τα νέα από κάποιο ιστότοπο (blog) ή γράφοντας κριτική σε κάποιο προϊόν που έχουν αγοράσει από το διαδίκτυο. Ενδιαφέρον είναι το γεγονός ότι οι χρήστες των μέσων κοινωνικής δικτύωσης δεν είναι μόνο μικρής ηλικίας, αλλά και άτομα ηλικίας 35-44 ετών κυρίως, τα οποία δημιουργούν λογαριασμούς και εγγράφονται σε ιστοσελίδες κοινωνικής δικτύωσης. Από τα παραπάνω γίνεται εμφανές ότι τα τελευταία χρόνια μπορούμε πλέον να μιλάμε για μία επανάσταση των κοινωνικών μέσων, η οποία επηρεάζει όχι μόνο την καθημερινή μας ζωή αλλά επιφέρει και άλλες κοινωνικές ή πολιτικές προεκτάσεις.
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e-Participation has been employed by many planning authorities across the world to facilitate the engagement of people in decision-making processes. Previous studies on eparticipation have shown that this form of participation can increase the level of flexibility and inclusiveness of public engagements, make government interventions more responsive to citizens' needs, and increase government accountability. While there is a growing use of e-participation in the planning systems of developed countries, its application in developing countries has remained very limited. This paper explores the barriers to employing eparticipation in the context of a developing country's planning system, using Iran as a case study. We have conducted interviews with different planning actors, including both publicand private-sector planners, to investigate what they perceive as such barriers. The results of this study show that the primary barriers to e-participation in Iran are attitudes towards participation, the structure and culture of the planning system, and staff capacity to engage the public through e-participation. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations regarding how these barriers can be overcome.

The term “Smart City” is to-date widely used, but little clarity appears in the definition behind it. Several approaches led to a growing emphasis on the combined use of geographic information and communication technology to build cognitive frameworks in city planning and management. The present paper tackles an effort to define ‘smart cities’ and to identify both elements of smartness, and critical aspects related to the current interpretation of the term. In particular, the risk of considering the technological layer of Smart City as an innovative element has been observed, highlighting, on the contrary, the need to consider Smart Cities in terms of a major urban planning effort to coordinate and harmonize different urban players, sustained by ICT instruments.

Models of public governance are changing profoundly due to global and digital transformations and various context-specific societal pressures. One direction of development is the increased utilisation of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) in facilitating governance practices. Such changes are intended to improve the performance of public organisations, the quality of democratic governance, and the cost-effectiveness of service delivery. This article outlines the potentials of technological trends in building governance platforms. The discussion is based on such influential trends as open source movement, Web 2.0, geoinformatics, and ubiquitous technologies. An approach that takes into account such e-enabled platform solutions is called platform orientation in public governance, which offers a framework for supporting policy and governance informatics. It’s supposed to provide new tools to create structured environments for governance and the capacity to increase the flexibility and responsiveness of public organisations as governance actors. Such e-enabled governance platforms are an answer to the needs of a highly complex and technologically meditated society with a special view to providing easy access to governance processes, encouraging creativity, sharing information in a cost-effective way, and integrating services and governance processes so that the processes are comprehensible, easy, and value-adding for citizens and other stakeholders.

Il presente contributo, seguendo un percorso di riflessione pensato per la didattica, prende spunto da un articolo giornalistico basato su un azzardato parallelo tra Obama e Cicerone. In sé, esso non può essere affrontato se non nei termini di un caso di ‘ricezione dell’antico’. Allo stesso tempo esso permette tuttavia di avanzare riflessioni sulla permanenza dei modelli dell’antichità nelle democrazie contemporanee e, soprattutto, sul loro ‘ritorno’ nella teoria politica dell’ultimo trentennio. Gli elementi-chiave sono, naturalmente, la crisi della rappresentanza e l’affermarsi delle nuove tecnologie, da alcuni ritenute in grado di riavvicinare il cittadino alla politica … dal comitium a internet.

Ever since the advent of the Internet, political communication scholars have debated its potential to facilitate and support public deliberation as a means of revitalizing and extending the public sphere. Much of the debate has focused on the medium’s potential in offering communicative spaces that transcend the limitations of time, space and access (and the traditional mass media) whereby open communication, deliberation and exchange of information among the public can prosper. Following the initial enthusiasm over the possibilities of a more interactive and deliberative electorate, along with the cyber-pessimist response, a growing body of rich empirical research into online deliberation has arisen in its wake. In search of online deliberation, scholars have conducted a broad range of investigations, developing several prominent directions in the field. One popular line of research has been the study of informal political talk through the lens of public sphere ideals.The aim of this chapter is to detail and discuss this growing body of research and its significance. First, I begin by discussing what scholars mean by political talk and why it is thought to be essential for (a more deliberative) democracy. Following this, the major findings to date are set out focusing specifically on three of the most common features of political talk investigated by scholars in the field. I discuss scholarly disagreement and offer my thoughts and critical reflection on the topic. Finally, the chapter ends with several recommendations for future research into informal political talk in the Internet-based public sphere.

Many countries worldwide have been reforming their
governments and public service delivery. They use information
and communications technologies (ICT) as a key
way to boost public sector accountability, transparency,
efficiency and effectiveness. It streamlines activities, reduces
costs and paperwork for government, citizens
and users of government services and it makes a much
wider range of information available and up-to-date.

A baseline study undertaken in The Gambia to prepare
for an e-government policy (see below) revealed
further challenges which many African States face. If
computer networks are available, they are often are
not connected between government institutions and
so they are not used for sharing data and information.
Although Internet Service Providers (ISPs) provide Internet
services, they are hardly used by government
to provide public services, mainly because of lack of
awareness and expertise.

Difficulties in providing e-government services are increased
because there is usually only limited telecommunications
coverage outside the capital. This also
makes it harder for African leaders to use ICT as part of
poverty reduction or to avoid increasing what is known
as the “digital divide”, the gap between better off people
with access to ICT, normally in the capital and other
large towns, and the rest of the population.

11th International Conference on Database and Data Mining (DBDM 2023) Conference provides a forum for researchers who address this issue and to present their work in a peer-reviewed forum. Authors are solicited to contribute to the conference by submitting articles that illustrate research results, projects, surveying works and industrial experiences that describe significant advances in the following areas but are not limited to these topics only.

In der Reihe GMD Research Series werden Forschungs-und Entwicklungsergebnisse aus der GMD zum wissenschaftlichen, nichtkommerziellen Gebrauch veröffentlicht. Jegliche Inhaltsänderung des Dokuments sowie die entgeltliche Weitergabe sind verboten.

Partiendo de las reflexiones desarrolladas a lo largo de las secciones anteriores, en este capítulo abordamos finalmente los procesos de diseño y construcción de sistemas de Software Cívico, que son los que en último término constituyen el objetivo central de esta investigación doctoral.
El capítulo se inicia con una revisión de la literatura académica más relacionada con la creación de sistemas de eParticipación. Hemos examinado, en particular, los avances más relevantes provenientes de las áreas del gobierno electrónico (Rodríguez Bolívar et al. 2010; Wimmer 2011), diseño centrado en el usuario, diseño participativo, informática comunitaria, HCI (Human Computer Interaction) y diseño de sistemas de deliberación, entre otros. A partir de los conceptos y propuestas extraídos de estas disciplinas proponemos un marco de referencia que aspira a orientar los procesos de diseño y construcción colaborativos de una plataforma de eParticipación municipal, aunque en general podría aplicarse a todo tipo de sistemas de Software Cívico.
Este marco de referencia está compuesto tanto por herramientas conceptuales como por una propuesta metodológica. Debido a la naturaleza socio-técnica de este tipo de sistemas (Coleman 2011), entendemos que su proceso de construcción debe tener un carácter eminentemente colaborativo, transdisciplinar y emergente (bottom-up), centrado en desarrollar al máximo las “oportunidades de acción” (“affordances”) que proporciona a sus usuarios (Norman 1999; Gibson 1977) y en los procesos de apropiación social de la plataforma (Mansell 2010). De esta forma, serán los usuarios finales del sistema quienes desempeñen en todo momento el papel protagonista y quienes promoverán la sostenibilidad del sistema. El marco de referencia propuesto proporciona, entre otras, indicaciones sobre cómo estructurar las tareas y fases de desarrollo del sistema, cuáles son las dimensiones más relevantes que deben tenerse en cuenta, cómo facilitar la participación de los usuarios y ciertas consideraciones de cara a la realización de pruebas piloto.

Conceptions of digital technology are contingent on particular conceptions of democracy (and vice versa), in that our perceptions of the "actionable properties" of the former are always already necessarily affected by our preconceptions of the latter. I will theorise this dialectical relationship in terms of logics of digital democratic affordances, which I conceive to be discursively constructed and ultimately contingent. In particular I will analyse how the Study Commission "Internet and Digital Society" (SCIDS) commissioned by the German Bundestag in 2010, understands the affordances of digital technology for German democracy. Rather than to "neutrally" analyse how digital technology impacts German society, I argue that in their policy recommendations the SCIDS implicitly normalises its own normative liberal-representative conception of digital democratic affordances and therefore forestalls much of the democratic potential offered by digital technology.

El tripulante del kayak mira brevemente a sus espaldas, leyendo las olas y de repente se gira y comienza a remar con fuerza, acelerando, mirando atrás cada tantos golpes de remos. Se acerca una gran ola, que bate bajo el kayak justo cuando éste iguala su velocidad. El kayak permanece sobre la cresta de la ola y sale disparado hacia adelante como un misil, cabalgando el oleaje, moviéndose ahora al doble de velocidad que cualquier otra cosa que haya en el agua(. . . )» « -Verás, el mundo está lleno de cosas más poderosas que nosotros. Pero si sabes cómo cabalgarlas, te llevan a sitios -dice Cuervo.»

The new wave of information communication technologies is transforming politics around the world. A growing international literature notwithstanding, however, scholarship on the relationship between politics and the internet in New Zealand remains scant. The purposes of this article are to review the published academic literature regarding the impact of the internet on politics in New Zealand and to sketch a future research agenda which will address the gaps in that scholarship. The focus throughout is on research conducted on or about the New Zealand case – whether by New Zealand scholars or others – and on formal institutional politics.

Digital media have made a strong appeal to people wanting to improve democracy right from the start. Four waves of utopian visions of the last 25 years are described. The concept of digital democracy is defined. Subsequently, six views of both representative and direct democracy are distinguished that favor particular applications of digital media in politics and government. The next paragraph makes an inventory of the claims and achievements of 25 years of attempts to realize digital democracy in the field of information provision, online discussion and decision making. It appears that information provision is the best realized claim. The final part of this chapter is about eParticipation in politics and policy. It discusses both government-and citizen-centric applications. Citizen-centric applications appear to be the most successful. Generally speaking, eparticipation has not been successfully incorporated in institutional politics and government.

Microblogging applications are becoming a momentous element of the public sector social media agenda. The potential of Twitter to update the public with frequent, concise and real-time content has motivated many pubic authorities to create their accounts, thus generating an interesting topic for research. This paper seeks to make an empirical and methodological contribution to this new body of knowledge by presenting an overview study of general Twitter accounts maintained by UK local government authorities. Over 296,000 tweets were collected from the 187officially listed local government accounts. The analysis was conducted in two stages: an examination of the Twitter networks developed by the accounts was followed by a structural analysis of the tweets. The combination of online research and social media analytics techniques enabled us to reach important conclusions about the use of Twitter by those authorities. The findings indicate high level of maturity of Twitter in the UK local government and point to several directions for further increasing the impact and visibility of those accounts within a social media strategy.

Political interest and voter turnout is in steady decline. In an attempt to renew interest for political matters, political parties and governments have attempted to create new digital meeting places,  with the hope that social media can contribute to renew the public sphere and thereby increase political awareness in the population. Communicating in new media demands adaption to the culture of the new medium, and the networked nature of the Internet poses
challenges to old ways of thinking as we can no longer talk about one public sphere but rather a networked public sphere consisting of a multitude of discussion spaces. In this article, we contribute to the understanding of the networked public sphere and online political communication through a case study of MyLaborParty.no, a social network run by a Norwegian political party. Our findings indicate that political parties can create a thriving part of the networked public sphere, as long as they invite opposing voices to the discussion, communicate using the genres which facilitate discussion and have users or moderators who help spread ideas between discussion spaces.

This article reflects, from a holistic and interdisciplinary perspective, on the challenges surrounding the development of eParticipation in Europe, with special focus on EU programs. To this end, we firstly assess the field’s practical and theoretical achievements and limitations, and corroborate that the progress of eParticipation in the last decade has not been completely satisfactory in spite of the significant share of resources invested to support it. We secondly attempt to diagnose and enlighten some of the field’s systemic problems and challenges which are responsible for this unsettling development. The domain’s maladies are grouped under tree main categories: (1) lack of a proper understanding and articulation with regard to the “Participation” field; (2) eParticipation community’s ‘founding biases’ around e-Government and academy; and (3) inadequacy of traditional Innovation Support Programmes to incentivize innovation in the eParticipation field. In the context of the ‘Europe 2020 Strategy’ and its flagship initiative “Innovation Union”, our final section provides several recommendations which could contribute to enhance the effectiveness of future European eParticipation actions.

According to the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act introduced in 2009, UK local authorities are expected to implement “a facility for making petitions in electronic form to the authority”.Motivated by this arrangement, this paperreflects on the findings of a case study investigation conducted with the Royal Borough of Kingston (one of the first local authorities to implement such a servicesince 2004). Lessons learnt from the case suggest that ePetitionsreveal increased potential to enhance local government democracy, but are also shaped by challengingopen implementation issues which can highly influencethe initiative’s impact.Our conclusionsare developed within the general debateabout online public participation or eParticipation andparticularly examinetheimplications for policy makers.

In this paper, we present a case study of the mobile app and ecosystem Trafpoint. Trafpoint is a system for registering when and where people travel by public transport, using gamification in an attempt to convince more people to travel in environmentally friendly ways. We argue that the Trafpoint app is a good example of what we call " implicit participation " , where user-generated data from volunteers generate valuable input for the political decision-making process. With the growth of sensors, smartphones being ubiquitous, and the growing interest in the Internet of Things, this form of participation has the potential to become very valuable for decision-makers in the coming years.

As we start our journey through the twenty-first century, we will continue to be faced with two divergent trends, the rise of the Internet and the steady decline in the public sphere, and in political participation in general.  The hopes of many are that eventually the one trend will offset the other; that the rapid growth of the Internet will be tapped into in hopes of harnessing its potential to enhance and reinvigorate a fading and ailing public sphere.  The question now becomes can this potential be translated into an enhancement for democracy, a remedy for an ailing public sphere?

This thesis examines this potential more closely by using the deliberative model of democracy and its emphasis on a ‘well functioning’ public sphere as a lens for examination of Internet practices, particularly those practices taking place within online political forums.  More specifically, this thesis has constructed a set of normative conditions of the ideal public sphere developed from the works of Habermas and other deliberative democrats, which were used as an evaluation scheme whereby these Internet practices were assessed - those being the process of understanding, sincerity, equality, and freedom.

This thesis’ research question: to what extent do current online political forums correspond to the ideal notion of the public sphere advocated by Habermas and other deliberative democrats, was assessed at three levels.  First, an examination was carried out by comparing the results from recent research, with regards to deliberating within online forums, to the set of normative conditions.  Secondly, an examination of the methods used by these researchers was conducted, again using the set of normative conditions as the frame of analysis.  Finally, an exploratory case study was conducted to assess current discursive practices within online political forums with the focus being placed on the testing of new methodological approaches for such an analysis. 

This case study focuses on exploring new methodological approaches for analyzing the normative condition of the process of understanding, more specifically the normative elements of rational-critical debate, reciprocity, and reflexivity, which when we consider the current state of research is much needed. 

The highlights of this exploratory case study consist of, first a visual mapping of the message flow within the discussion thread.  Second, a ‘web of reciprocity’ approach was used to assessing discussion threads for their level of reciprocity as a whole.  Finally, taking from argumentation theory, a three progressive level of analysis of reflexivity, which assessed messages for their use of counter-arguments and counter-evidence as a means of detecting the level of reflexivity present within a single message and within the messages as a whole.

The aim of this chapter is to see whether online discussion forums dedicated to popular culture (reality TV) provide a communicative space, content and style for politics that extends the public sphere. Given their typically casual, chatty and frivolous nature, we might assume that political talk doesn’t emerge in such spaces, and if it does, it would fall well short of the type of talk crucial to the public sphere. To what extent does political talk emerge in such spaces? If so, do such forums fulfil the requirements of rationality and ‘decent’ deliberation? Given the nature of the forums, the analysis moves beyond a formal notion of deliberation by also taking into account the use of expressive speech acts: emotion, humour and acknowledgements. What role do ‘expressives’ play within online political talk and how do they impact the normative conditions of deliberation? Moreover, comparing these spaces with a space dedicated to high politics – the Guardian political discussion forum – allows us to see whether, as critics would expect, deliberative talk is taking place in the one and emotional and irrational talk in the other.

This study examines effects of microblogging communications during emergency events based on the case of the summer 2011 riots in London. During five days in August 2011, parts of London and other major cities in England suffered from extensive public disorders, violence and even loss of human lives. We collected and analysed the tweets posted by the official accounts maintained by 28 London local government authorities. Those authorities used Twitter for a variety of purposes such as preventing rumours, providing official information, promoting legal actions against offenders and organising post-riot community engagement activities. The study shows how the immediacy and communicative power of microblogging can have a significant effect at the response and recovery stages of emergency events.

Purpose This paper aims to examine major stakeholders’ communication preferences in eParticipation initiatives and discuss how this affects the public sphere. Despite the potential of social media, it has proven difficult to get people actively involved in the decision-making processes. There is a need for more research on how stakeholders manage and use social media to communicate. Design/methodology/approach The study was conducted as a qualitative case study. Data sources include interviews, social media content, document analysis and field notes. Findings Communication preferences of stakeholders vary according to their salience level. Stakeholders with higher salience are less likely to participate in social media, whereas those who are less salient will use every available medium to gain influence. This challenges the opportunity to create a traditional public sphere in social media. Research limitations/implications The authors contribute to a better understanding of who part...

The state in modern times is considered to be gradually involved with two main challenges: localization of everything non-mobile and non-productive and globalization of everything mobile and lucrative. The financial and legitimating challenges and competition in the concept of the continuing technological progress –the so called New Information and Communication Technologies (NICTs) - created the need for a “new public management”. In this need, e-Government was shaped.

By subsidizing the costs of civic participation, the use of the Internet use is believed to stimulate participation but there are fears that intensive Internet use causes withdrawal from public life. This paper investigates the connection between the way individuals participate online and offline in authoritarian, low-income regimes, and the nature of eParticipation among citizens in authoritarian regimes such as Uganda. Based on personal interviews with 116 Internet users, the study found that common drivers of eParticipation, such as low cost, security and anonymity are hard to transplant into the offline world for citizens of authoritarian states such as Uganda. Perceived risks of retribution and intimidation for expressing a particular opinion or supporting a political cause mean that citizen-to-citizen participation is the predominant form but still at low levels, while citizen-to-government participation is negligible.

Supporting public decision making in policy deliberations has been a key objective of eParticipation which is an emerging area of eGovernment. EParticipation aims to enhance citizen involvement in public governance activities through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). An innovative approach towards this objective is exploiting the potentials of semantic web technologies centred on conceptual knowledge models in the form of ontologies. Ontologies are generally defined as explicit human and computer shared views on the world of particular domains. In this paper, the potentials and benefits of using ontologies for policy deliberation processes are discussed. Previous work is then extended and synthesised to develop a deliberation ontology. The ontology aims to define the necessary semantics in order to structure and interrelate the stages and various activities of deliberation processes with legal information, participant stakeholders and their associated arguments. The practical implications of the proposed framework are illustrated.

This paper presents an evaluation of an eParticipation solution for rapid feedback and dialogue between citizens and politicians. The solution consists of a mobile application with survey-like functionality and a methodology for politicians' use of the app. We report the findings from our evaluation of a pilot study involving five Norwegian municipalities. Our findings clearly show that this type of solution has the potential to engage so-called lurkers and standby citizens to provide feedback on politicians' concrete issues. Further, the solution's complexity level places it between existing solutions for open/unstructured debate and more complex solutions. Both politicians and participating citizens report that they were happy with the pilot results and would like to continue using the solution. A test of an extended version of the solution is planned in 2021.

In this paper, I apply framing theory to the online newspaper opinion articles that were most shared and most liked in social media in 2014. The articles were published in two of Norway’s largest and most influential online newspapers; Dagbladet.no and Aftenposten.no. Frame analysis makes visible how people define and construct a given issue, and as such can provide valuable input on how to write when you want a topic put on the political agenda. The findings show that the most popular opinion articles have one common theme: They are written in a personal tone, and aimed at our private sphere. The paper concludes by discussing what this means for agenda setting and for the public sphere.

The innovations examined in this paper refer to the democratisation of the administration and its contribution to the strengthening of representative democracy. These are across-theboard innovations that affect the process but may also affect products and policies hrough the engagement of the public. In this regard, one major nnovation that has come to form an unexpectedly prominent part of government programmes throughout the world is the establishment of strategies linked to the concept of «open government». The aper explains the concept and describes some of its results. It ends by suggesting some reasons for the low level of development of this concept in Spain.

Opportunities to examine how policy shapes eParticipation have so far been limited. This study assesses the requirement for local government authorities in England to have provided an online petitioning facility by the end of 2010. Based on an analysis of 353 web sites, the findings show that the impact of this policy was ambiguous: compliance was achieved, but most systems were only basically implemented and attracted limited use. Institutional variables were very influential in this outcome.

While there is an increasing interest for conducting research on the importance of social media within the eParticipation area, more emphasis is still needed within the context of developing countries. We address this need by presenting a literature review on social media within eParticipation in developing countries, to add to the understanding of how these technologies influence the political environment. We discuss trends, contributions and challenges within this area, and propose a future research agenda. Furthermore, we propose a model of social media for eParticipation from a process view perspective to guide future research in this field.