good old media

The reults of the survey (The promise and perits of 'virtual representation') have been covered by the media. I (so far) heard of

• An article in the Guardian Online, by Matthew Tempest - 'Politcs slips through the Net'
• A report on ePolitix.com, Public 'wants better online access to MPs'
• A report plus commentary featured on the Hansard Society's website
• A feature in the eGovernment bulletin, research section
• A feature in Personal Computer World news, by Robert Jacques
• An article in ZDNET news, fromt Kablenet
  

It was also featured on the SOSIG (Social Science Information Gateway) blog, and yes, for once, without us asking!

Of course, Tim Ireland at Bloggerheads was very kind to post a para from the report and a link.

Please post any additional coverage you migh thave come across !

Results: British citizens, the Internet and representation (2)

The ESRC press release for the public opinion survey was out today, hopefully it will help generate some interest in the media.

We are wittier than I thought ...

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Nice website, shame no-one visits it: politics still a turn-off, even in cyberspace

EMBARGOED UNTIL 00:01 HRS THURSDAY 24TH FEBRUARY 2005

Despite soaring use of the Internet, online politics is still 'very much a minority sport', according to new ESRC-sponsored research showing that e-mails and websites have so far done little to bring us closer to our parliaments and politicians.

With a General Election perhaps weeks away, MPs and legislatures are failing to reap the benefits of new forms of communication aimed at reversing voter-apathy, says a study led by Dr Stephen Ward, of the Oxford Internet Institute, with Wainer Lusoli of Salford and Rachel Gibson of the Australian National universities.

In stark contrast with the upsurge of the Internet, interest in politics in Britain remains flat, says the study, revealing that fewer than two per cent of regular Internet users have visited the personal websites of their MPs.

There are high expectations and widespread public support for a range of online services and initiatives from MPs, the House of Commons and the Scottish and Welsh legislatures, aimed at encouraging us to play our part in democracy.

But there remains a large gap between this apparent support and actual use of new technologies. For example, people still have concerns about casting their ballots online, three years after the first e-voting pilots in the UK.

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Read more on the project site

They work for you, or do they? (2)

I've just registered on the Theyworkforyou.com website. As I'm user 900 odd, there must be about a thousand registered users on the site. Or I'm a genius and got that wrong. But let us see what's in the shell, at first inspection looked interesting.

They work for you, or do they?

At last we have managed to contribute to one of the best efforts around. Theyworkforyou.com mark 2 is now live, new and improved as they say. I'd venture to say that is the most comprehensive repository of current knowledge on MPs ever (yes, more than Dods, and more than the HoC website itself).

Our little contribution, I was saying, is a directory of MPs personal websites from the IPOP project. Yes, the one database that took a massivre lot of work. That now appears on Theyworkforyou as link in the additional information box, namely "the more useful links for MPs". not bad I thought.

We keep similar directories for Wales, Scotland, Australian House of Reps, Queensland and Victoria Parliaments.

And no, we-re not mad, just running research funded under the eSociety programme, the tracking is part of a much wider project.

Life after a press release

Just to confirm that there's life after a press release. In the next few days I will re-organise things and post on:

1. archiving the next UK election
2. blogging and the next UK election
3. transparency, blogging and journalism
4. social capital and the internet (I've seen two great reports)

Stay tuned for more.

More academic blogs

I've just come across Roman's blog, about, ehm, the Internet and democracy (blimey comptetition is getting worse and worse, or should I say better and better).. There's ever more weblogs devoted to research matters, individual and group likewise.

I'm a contributor to the Media@LSE group blog, set up by David Brake and now quasi-live (I know, I know, I should post more often myself).

The list on Urs Gasser's blog is certainly impressive. (though I note a prevalence of websites over blogs). And thers'e a topical list of e-politics scholars on the IPOP site but wonder how many of these now would now have a site.

Have I missed anyone obvious?

Results: British citizens, the Internet and representation

Long, long spell of silence. Busy finalising our first opinion survey: British citizens' use of the Internet and political representation. Headline findings and report are found online at http://www.ipop.org.uk

__The promise and perils of ‘virtual representation’__

Questions were asked about citizens' attitudes and behaviours concerning legislators (MPs, MSPs, AMs) and representation, plus a range of questions about online communications involving legislators, government and the Parliament.

For queries/comments, please feel free to contact myself on this site or Dr. Stephen Ward, the Principal Investigator, at stephen.ward_at_oii.ox.ac.uk.