e-democracy in European cities

"e-Citizenship for All" benchmark survey results presented in Tallinn by the Eurocities network [completed in 2004]

Of interest to this audience may be the results for e-democracy:

- eDemocracy and Community Building: More than 90% of respondents were in agreement with elected representatives being contactable by e-mail; citizens receiving electronic communications on policy matters and elected representatives to modernise their working practices. However, 57% of participants didn’t expect on-line consultation to raise public expectations and could lead to frustration. 43% had no view on whether all European citizens should be able to vote on-line and 53% suggested that elected representatives couldn’t cope with the number of e-mails they receive.

Very much in line with our recent results from Britain, released in The promise and perils of ‘virtual representation’ - The public view.

eat you own words - the comeback

Twice in a week, that's not fair: more candidates blogging, of the Green species:

Susan Jay, Green party for Neath
Miranda la Vey, Green party for Aberavon
Rhoddri Griffiths, Green party for Gower
Tony Young, Green party for Swansea East

Ready now for 'eat my own words: the final act', any suggestions?

candidate blogs at the UK 2005 election

After a week of digital wandering, I think I may have collated a comprehensive list of candidate blogs. Mind you, it is claimed they are blogs: some are simple diaries, no comment facility.

Conservative	Cardiff North	Jonathan Morgan
Conservative	Ceredigion	John Harrison
Conservative	Copeland	Chris Whiteside
Conservative	Enfield North	Nick de Bois
Conservative	Glasgow East	Carl Thomson
Conservative	Henley	Boris Johnson
Conservative	Kingston & Surbiton	Kevin Davis
Conservative	Llanelli	Adrian Phillips
Conservative	Monmouth	David Davies
Conservative	Moray	Jamie Halcro-Johnston
Conservative	Norfolk North	Iain Dale
Conservative	Norwich South	Anthony Little
Conservative	South Shields	Richard Lewis
Conservative	Swindon South	Robert Buckland
Conservative	Torbay	Marcus Wood
Conservative	Wallasey	Leah Fraser
Green	Brighton Pavilion	Keith Taylor
Green	Swansea West	Martyn Shrewsbury
Independent	Blackburn	Craig Murray
Labour	Aberdeen South	Anne Begg
Labour	Broxbourne	Jamie Bolden
Labour	Cambridge	Anne Campbell
Labour	Cities of London & Westminster	Hywel Lloyd
Labour	Great Grimsby	Austin Mitchell
Labour	Islington South & Finsbury	Emily Thornberry
Labour	Leeds North West	Judith Blake
Labour	Oxford West & Abingdon	Antonia Bance
Labour	Sittingbourne & Sheppey	Derek Wyatt
Labour	St Helens South	Shaun Woodward
Labour	Stalybridge & Hyde	James Purnell
Labour	Suffolk Central & Ipswich North	Neil Macdonald
Labour	Tooting	Sadiq Khan
Labour	Wells	Dan Whittle
Liberal Democrat	Chingford & Woodford Green	John Beanse
Liberal Democrat	Devon West & Torridge	David Walter
Liberal Democrat	Enfield North	Simon Radford
Liberal Democrat	Romsey	Sandra Gidley
Liberal Democrat	Ryedale	Gordon Beever
Liberal Democrat	Stone	Richard Stevens
Liberal Democrat	Warwick & Leamington	Linda Forbes
Liberal Democrat	Woodspring	Mike Bell
Respect-Unity Coalition	Cambridge	Tom Woodcock
Respect-Unity Coalition	West Ham	Lindsey German

[ update ]

I hate eating my own words... here’s another three.

David Abbott, UKIP candidate
Graham Booth, UKIP candidate
Matt Davies, UKIP candidate

o'farrell and who should you vote for

The site is generating some interesting publicity. In this case take a look at John O’Farrell’s heavy duty, having a go at www.whoshouldyouvotefor.com.

Yes, the same man asking your money for Labour by email. Interesting.

uk election candidates

At the last count, using a number of sources, there were 3538 candidated fielded in this election, nominated over 646 constituencies.

The sources do not include the Electoral Commission. Makes me wonder why there is no register of official candidates, easily available to the public at least, as is the case in Australia.

election donations, Internet and transparency

This is meant by transparency through the Internet: The Electoral Commission register of donations to the parties, during the first week of campaign. The Tories lead, but Labour is not far behind.

election 2005 candidates

There’s ever more candidates blogging at this election. Wonder how many by now. Gordon Beever’s blog, Ryedale constituency.

Possibly the most extensive list I’ve seen is at Richard Kimber’s website.

internet and participation datasets available

All datasets form the ‘Democracy and Participation’ project, Internet component, funded by the ESRC are now on the site. Take a look.

election 2005: effects and experience

The debate on the Voxpolitics site is growing more interesting by the day. Stephen Coleman took exception with Bill Thompson's optimism and framing of the issue (as I sort of did, as well).

I think that this approach does more harm than good. It suggests that the internet either 'matters' or 'doesn't matter', usually determined by answers to questions such as 'Did it lead to seats being won or lost?' or 'Did more people go online than watch TV?' To study the political effects of the internet should amount to more than aggrandising online politics in relation to other forms of communication.

My own position is that the internet throws up new forms, styles and experiences of political communication which supplement others, such as watching TV, reading newspapers and talking to friends and family. Sometimes supplementary activities turn into opportunities to communicate in new and interesting ways. These moments and episodes of qualitative innovation are more significant, I would argue, than claims that the internet counts more, less or not at all.

I agree with Stephen on the importance of 'style', experience (and performance) of online participation; I also agree on the need to move away from the 'effects' - 'no effects' debates, as 'uses' are much more pertinent (and interesting) frame.

However, I would not lump 'Did it lead to seats being won or lost?' or 'Did more people go online than watch TV?' in the same sentence.

The digitalisation of news (and information) production and consumption may not 'matter' for the campaign; but if 'tomorrow' the majority of Britons (from different backgrounds) was to use the Internet rather than TV as a source of political news, that would matter enormously for the 'style', experience, performance, and 'uses' described above.

That is: structure matters, digital structures matter.

If any British online political epiphany had to be had 'tomorrow', it would come thorough the BBC website, Google or Yahoo.co.uk. That is what people currently experience when they use the Net for political information.

voxpolitics, Internet and the election

It is not very often that I disagree with the Voxpolitics pool of experts (you try to define what they are doing!). I though I'd take on Bill Thompson's 'optimism' about the role of the internet in the forthcoming election.

Nothing wrong with optimism, please note. However.

Let's agree - the Net really counts this time

Put aside your cynicism and lack of faith in the Internet - this time it's really going to make a difference. John Naughton talks about the importance of the local, thanks to the Net, and I've used my BBC column this week (also on the BillBlog) to point out just how important online activity is in the campaign - and to namecheck some Vox friends.

Of course, I could be rather embarrassed on May 6 if it all fizzles out, and as one correspondent pointed out to me, only the LibDems have thought to buy 'General Election' as a Google Adword - but I'm optimistic.

Both articles are quite interesting. However neither explain exactly how the Internet is (supposed) to make a change. Net camapigns getting more aggressive? More persuasive? Citizen-journalists reaching out to the disengaged multitudes? The Electoral Commission site converting young infidels who would have not voted otherwise?

Or more important:

Where is the good old media in the equation?

And how does the transition from analogue to digital (traditional) media matter for the voting choice (and the decision to vote in the first place?

US election 2004

I'm coming across ever more papers and research on Internet, activism and the US 2004 election. The last in the series was Internet Activism and the Democratic Emergency in the U.S., by David Jacobs. This reads nicely along Chadwick's wider-ranging paper on The Internet, Political Mobilization, and Organizational Hybridity.

I'm sure that more wil be coming from the PoliticalWebInfo team, as they collected plenty of evidence on the structure of online poltiical action in the US 2004 election.

And I' sure the usual suspects already have their hands on the NES 2004, and are churning out tables and regressions on Internet 'effects' on the election. Might have to wait until ICA and APSA though to see somthing in print.

internet and politics @ UK data archive

All datasets form the ESRC Internet, political representation and participation project (I was involved with) were released by the UK Data Archive.

Hooray. Except that they got my name-surname upside down. I'm now "Wainer, L." which is not funny but alas.

Now I can post the dataset to the data section of the IPOP site and my own site (by the end of the week), with all accompanying documentation and some notes of explanation.

ippr consultation on digital britain

The Institute for Public Policy Research (leading UK think-tank) has launched a 3-week consultation (on their blog) concerning Britain digital future.

Today we launch the first of three week-long online consultations, as a way of gathering opinion, ideas and recommendations for our Digital Manifesto. We will post questions under the following themes, over the following weeks:

• 7th-13th April: Innovating
• 14th-20th April: Reassuring
• 21st-27th April: Empowering

In each instance, we invite replies to our specific questions (added to this blog) from all sorts of perspectives, and all types of expertise. With authors' permission, we would like to be able to use or quote these ideas in our final publication, and credit them accordingly.

I reckon that media and new media scholars should make their voice heard about their preferred direction of new media development in Britain (and elsewhere)? Top of my head: open source, in-house capacity, surveillance, digital inequality, etc, etc, and unfortunately etc. again.

Internet: re-connection, hybridity and poiesis

You may as well ask how on earth these three go together. Well.

I was at the PSA conference in Leeds yesterday. There was a panel on 'Internet and politics' broadly defined. Very broadly defined.

First paper by Steve Ward, on UK citizens' uses of the Internet to re-connect with legislators. Very interesting (and I know because I co-authored it ;). I won't say any more than that.

Second paper by Andrew Chadwick, about changing organisational forms, political mobilisation, hybridity and the Internet. He looks at recent case study evidence from the US (including Moveon.org and Deanspace) to see how new media repertoires bring 'old' and 'new' together, in terms of people, resourcing and tactics. But not only: how innovation and adaptation must co-exist, and, crucially, the coming of the a new (political) information age. Highly recommended, read for yourself.

Third paper by Paul Taylor, about, well, this is a tough cookie. About the dominant panglossian view of technology, over the last century or so. And about the (suspect) use of poiesis to rescue the humanism of technology, save radicalism and find solutions to the 'doom and gloom'. But we _are_ doomed, don't you think otherwise. The reading list was impressive, and I ordered a copy of the forthcoming book already, examining the matrix.

Questions were asked as well, but I better go now, will post later.

psa 2005 presentation

The presentation to go with the PSA paper is ready as well, in case you can't make it to Leeds.

Old Politics - New Media: Parliament, the Public and the Internet

(and the new ppt template is a definite improvement on the dark blue we used before!)

e-politics survey (telewest)

A Telewest event, last Wednesday, 23 March in London, was occasioned by the launch of Vision21 survey research (for Telewest) on electronic communications between MPs and the public.

Both Derek Wyatt, MP and Declan McHugh of the Hansard were there as well.

As customary now for IPOP people (ah-ehm!) Steve Ward made the news, on the BBC online as well as in The Register.

From the BBC:

Dr Stephen Ward, a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, has spent the last six months analysing MPs websites and is not impressed with what he has found.

"Most offer just standard information and are essentially cyber brochures. Very few offer interactivity," he said.

He believes most MPs are wary of direct dialogue with their constituents.

"Lots of MPs don't want that dialogue and feel they haven't got the time for it," he said.

The few websites that did impress him were those that were updated on a daily or weekly basis or ones which laid out how a particular MP stood on a range of issues.

Read the full e-politics report (based on 3,150 phone interviews, CATI, February 2005).