Vor Jahren haben wir, die Politikwissenschaftler, politischen Wandel, der durch das Internet vermittelt wurde, meist nicht ernst genommen: Entweder schoben wir ihn in den Bereich der Kommunikationsforschung ab oder betrachteten ihn als virtuellen Annex des öffentlichen Lebens. Inzwischen gehört die Internet-und-Politik-Forschung zum „Pflicht“-Bereich der Regierungslehre und der Vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft. Politik findet heutzutage auch in der digitalen Arena statt. Das beschränkt sich keineswegs nur auf die Herstellung von Öffentlichkeit und das Abwägen von Standpunkten. Mitunter schlägt sich cyberweltlicher Schlagabtausch bereits direkt auf die politische Wirklichkeit nieder. In diesem Sinne bietet das Thema dieses WeltTrends-Heftes eine tour d’horizon digitaler Demokratie.

Issues concerning communication, information technology and democracy are focused points of studies in politics, sociology and communication. In the past few decades, the Internet has changed the image and ecology of mass media. The Internet provides more opportunities than other media for individuals to participate in the public discourse. Many scholars have suggested that Internet¡¦s characteristics such as real-time, interactivity, openness, and equality may help balance the power and bias exerted by traditional mass media. In this research three Internet forums (board) in Taiwan were analyzed by adopting the content analysis to evaluate the quality of discourse based on the communicative act theory proposed by Habermas. Specifically, we investigate several issues: Is the online forum an open, equal public place? Do participants interact with one another? Do they reach rational-critical discussion within an environment lack of social context cues? Do those virtual debates lead to cohesion and influence the real-life political process? There are several findings. First, although online forums are more open than traditional media¡¦s, individuals without internet facilities and skills are excluded from participation. Even within the forums, participants are not totally free to join or speak due to the registration, written netiquette norms, and hierarchical control systems. Secondly, instead of equally joining the discussion, a small percentage of people contribute to a majority of discourse in two websites¡¦ forums. That is, although online forums provide an opportunity for democratic discourse, it does not mean that everyone subscribed to the online discussion will participate equally. Thirdly, it is possible for individuals to reach rational-critical discussion within a CMC environment, the virtual debates rarely lead to consensus, let alone influencing real-life policy-making. In sum, this study concludes that the Internet has not become an alternative to the traditional media as a public sphere.

The California state legislature introduces approximately 5,000 new bills each legislative session. While the legislative hearings are recorded on video, the recordings are not easily accessible to the public. The lack of official transcripts or summaries also increases the effort required to gain meaningful insight from those recordings. Therefore, the news media and the general population are largely oblivious to what transpires during legislative sessions. Digital Democracy, a project started by the Cal Poly Institute for Advanced Technology and Public Policy, is an online platform created to bring transparency to the California legislature. It features a searchable database of state legislative committee hearings, with each hearing accompanied by a transcript that was generated by an internal transcription tool. This thesis presents SKEWER, a pipeline for building a spoken-word knowledge graph from those transcripts. SKEWER utilizes a number of natural language processing tools to extract named entities, phrases, and sentiments from the transcript texts and aggregates the results of those tools into a graph database. The resulting graph can be queried to discover knowledge regarding the positions of legislators, lobbyists, and the general public towards specific bills or topics, and how those positions are expressed in committee hearings. Several case studies are presented to illustrate the new knowledge that can be acquired from the knowledge graph.

O que buscamos mapear nesta tese de doutorado é de que forma as narrativas hipertextuais estão mudando a democracia digital. Ao detectarmos tais mudanças, ocorridas nas narrativas mediadas por computador, com a elaboração de um experimento coletivo de trocas de narrativas, o Remix Narrativo, procuramos correlacionar algumas escrituras, sejam elas em formato texto (poesias, contos, folhetins, histórias cotidianas, urbanidades), formato imagético (fotografias, ilustrações, vídeos, recortes), formato sonoro ou formato comunitário, como listas de discussão e comunidade no Orkut. O participante pode alterar uma narrativa existente a partir do desenrolar da trama; alterar os personagens ou mudar de formato, ou seja, continuar o conto com inserção de imagem, áudio ou vídeo. A cada bloco temático é possível espiar, participar, modificar ou iniciar uma nova narrativa apropriando-se do formato existente ou escolhendo outro numa brincadeira entre formatos multimidiáticos. Com esse experimento, pretende-se apresentar uma reflexão conceitual acerca do processo de narrar, além de promover o questionamento sobre a morte do autor, já proposto por Barthes em 1967. O anônimo ganha poder de emergente. E a aventura segue um roteiro não-linear, bem aos moldes propostos por Borges. / What we intend to investigate in this doctorate thesis is how the hypertextual narratives are changing digital democracy. As we detect those changes, which happened through computer mediated narratives, we created a colective experiment to exchange narratives, called Narrative Remix. We intended to collect writing materials (be it poetry, short stories, day to day stories, urbanities), imagetic format (pictures, ilustrations, videos, paper clips), sound formats or community formats, such as forums and Orkut groups. The participant can alter an existing narrative as the story unfolds, change a character or change the format. That means, keep telling the story by inserting images, audio or video. Each thematic bloc allows the user to see, participate, change or start a new narrative by taking the pre-existent format or choosing another one, in a array of multimedia formats. With this experiment, the idea is to present a conceptual reflection about the narrative process, and to promote the questioning about the death of the author, already raised by Barthes in 1967. The anonimous gains the emergent power. And the adventure gains a non-linear sequence plot, in the terms proposed by Borges.

O presente trabalho se insere no campo sobre Democracia Digital e procura compreender o funcionamento das iniciativas de participação digitais que visam incidir na decisão política. Será argumentado que, na ausência de ferramentas de agregação e de níveis de representação, é através de um processo de tradução que o Estado é capaz de lidar com os grandes volumes de informação difusa provenientes dessas iniciativas. Ao longo do trabalho, serão explorados os aspectos que compõem o processo de tradução e será utilizado como exemplo empírico o estudo de caso sobre o Marco Civil da Internet. / This work falls within the field of Digital Democracy and intents to understand the functioning of digital participation initiatives seeking to produce effects on political decision. I argue that in the absence of aggregation- and representation-level tools, it is through a translation process that the state is able to handle the large volumes of scattered information from these initiatives. Throughout the work, the aspects that constitute the translation process and the empirical example will be a case study on the Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet

O avanço das Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação e a capacidade de mobilização proporcionada por seu uso têm mostrado ao mundo que o futuro está em transformação: regimes políticos são contestados no Oriente Médio a partir de movimentos digitais; governos questionados no mundo todo sofrem ataques de grupos hackers anônimos; pessoas de todo o globo se comunicam em tempo real e interagem por meio de jogos eletrônicos online, movimentando expressivas somas de dinheiro em microtransações. Considerando esse novo meio digital de interações, a proposta desta tese é investigar a prática da Democracia Digital (subsidiariamente, do Governo Eletrônico), com foco na ação estruturante do Estado nesse campo, como modo de facilitar a participação da Sociedade Civil nos rumos da democracia. Igualmente há – aqui – o interesse de conhecermos a preocupação e a ação (ou a ausência dela) por parte do Estado, com relação à possível ocorrência de um efeito de ampliação da exclusão social na participação democrática – a partir do uso reiterado do meio virtual para manifestações de interesse e vontade, já que, em tese, tal espaço tem uma população substancialmente menor do que o campo físico – offline. O caso de estudo que propicia as discussões é o GD do Rio Grande do Sul, devido à sua relevância e o reconhecimento como uma das experiências recentes mais prolíficas dentro da temática da Democracia Digital. Este estudo se deu a partir de dados primários e secundários. Foram realizadas entrevistas com atores-chave para o GD do Rio Grande do Sul, no intuito de conhecer suas motivações, conceitos e ações à época do projeto. Dentre os resultados das reflexões desta tese, chegou-se a uma série de ações que os estados poderiam empreender; assim como precauções que poderiam ser tomadas, de modo a estruturar seu campo democrático digital e, ao mesmo tempo, reduzir o risco da ciberelitização. Finalmente, como sugestão para futuras pesquisas a partir dessa temática, e considerando a complexidade envolvida num trabalho dessa natureza, indica-se aos futuros pesquisadores que investiguem as ações do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul em termos de inclusão social. Além disso, nos parece relevante conhecer em pesquisas vindouras as opiniões e as experiências dos usuários do GD, a fim de compreender a sua visão sobre o que foi atingido. / The advance of Information and Communications Technology and the mobilization capacity provided by its use has shown to the world that the future is changing: political regimes have been defied in the Middle East by digital movements; unpopular government have been suffering digital attacks by anonymous hackers groups in the whole world; people around the world have been chatting in real time and interacting through games online, with the circulation of a great amount of money in micro transactions. Considering this new digital way of interactions, the proposal of this study is to investigate the practices of Digital Democracy (subsidiarily to e-Government), focusing on the State structural actions in this field, and to allow the participation of the Civil Society in the government’s decision making and democracy. Also, is here the interest of knowing the conception and actions (or the lack of) by the State, in relation to the possible occurrence of Social Exclusion and CyberElitism on democratic participation process through the Internet. The case study selected here, the Digital Office of Rio Grande do Sul, is recognized as one of the most prolific of the recent experiences within the subject of Digital Democracy in Brazil. This study used from primary and secondary data. Interviews were conducted with key actors of the Digital Office of Rio Grande do Sul, in order to know their motivations, concepts and actions at the time of the project. Among the results of this study, a series of actions that states must undertake emerged, and also precautions that need to be taken in order to structure their digital democratic fields and, at the same time, to avoid the risk of cyberelitization. Considering the complexity of the issue, we suggest as guidelines for future researchers to continue this investigation seeking for the actions of the State of Rio Grande do Sul in terms of Social Inclusion. It would be equally relevant to investigate the views and experiences of the users of the Digital Office, i. e. the population.

<p>This essay is about publishing on the Internet and aims to understand the differences between publishing information on the webpage Wikipedia (Swedish version) in contrast to other information pages on the Internet, for example blog, discussion pages, homepages etcetera. The study is based upon an article which described that 90% of the information publishers at Wikipedia belongs to a small elite of white, western, well educated men between the age of thirty to thirtythree. This study examines why people who does not belong to this heteronormativity publish information in other Internet places but not at Wikipedia.Wikipedia is an open source site, where anyone can publish and are even encouraged to do so and is often described as an utopian dream of the digital democracy, so why don´t people express themselves on Wikipedia? The method is based on two discussion groups, which are compared and analyzed. The study is based upon theoretical competence within feminist theory and conceptions such as intersectionality, heteronormativity and digital divide as well as theories about digital devices and social order. The analyses concluded that Wikipedias structure restrains people from contributing with information on the site, that is understand to be associated with true and objective information and prestige. It is also compared to the printed encyclopedia which also strengthens this understanding. And when people publish information in other coherences it is based upon their own understanding, and this requirement for true and objective information at Wikipedia hinder many.</p>

This research explores the application of new information and communications technology in political marketing. As a representative of Web2.0, blog has changed the way of interaction between the media and users as well as that between media users. Blog makes it possible for information receivers transmit messages and express views from bottom-up. As blog develops globally with its users increased, it has become an increasingly important issue regarding how it can be used for political marketing. It is common that Taiwan¡¦s politicians are increasingly interested in developing their own blogs for marketing themselves and providing constituency service. This study aims to examine how mayor candidates take advantage of blog for campaign marketing. It tries to understand and describe the intention of political bloggers. It also explores the key success factors regarding how political candidates conduct campaign marketing using blog. By a literature review of the Internet development and evolution, digital democracy, political marketing and blogs, the author found out six dimensions and 35sub-dimensions for evaluation: content expression, interactivity, marketing and promotion, business model and friendliness of using. Through analytic hierarchy process (AHP) , the first-wave survey for bloggers results in the first-half sub-dimensions. The second-wave interview was conducted to seven experts in the field of political marketing, which results in the priority-setting of the sub-dimension factors. The result shows that political marketing using blog targets mainly on young and well-educated electorates. The reasons for their using blog include fast accumulation of political information, interaction with candidates, and support from others. It shows that friendliness of access, interaction, and business model are the top three concerns when establishing a campaign blog. They are followed by marketing and promotion, interface design, and content expression. This study will contribute to the understanding of using blog for political marketing both at theoretical and practicallevels.

This essay is about publishing on the Internet and aims to understand the differences between publishing information on the webpage Wikipedia (Swedish version) in contrast to other information pages on the Internet, for example blog, discussion pages, homepages etcetera. The study is based upon an article which described that 90% of the information publishers at Wikipedia belongs to a small elite of white, western, well educated men between the age of thirty to thirtythree. This study examines why people who does not belong to this heteronormativity publish information in other Internet places but not at Wikipedia.Wikipedia is an open source site, where anyone can publish and are even encouraged to do so and is often described as an utopian dream of the digital democracy, so why don´t people express themselves on Wikipedia? The method is based on two discussion groups, which are compared and analyzed. The study is based upon theoretical competence within feminist theory and conceptions such as intersectionality, heteronormativity and digital divide as well as theories about digital devices and social order. The analyses concluded that Wikipedias structure restrains people from contributing with information on the site, that is understand to be associated with true and objective information and prestige. It is also compared to the printed encyclopedia which also strengthens this understanding. And when people publish information in other coherences it is based upon their own understanding, and this requirement for true and objective information at Wikipedia hinder many.

O avanço das Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação e a capacidade de mobilização proporcionada por seu uso têm mostrado ao mundo que o futuro está em transformação: regimes políticos são contestados no Oriente Médio a partir de movimentos digitais; governos questionados no mundo todo sofrem ataques de grupos hackers anônimos; pessoas de todo o globo se comunicam em tempo real e interagem por meio de jogos eletrônicos online, movimentando expressivas somas de dinheiro em microtransações. Considerando esse novo meio digital de interações, a proposta desta tese é investigar a prática da Democracia Digital (subsidiariamente, do Governo Eletrônico), com foco na ação estruturante do Estado nesse campo, como modo de facilitar a participação da Sociedade Civil nos rumos da democracia. Igualmente há – aqui – o interesse de conhecermos a preocupação e a ação (ou a ausência dela) por parte do Estado, com relação à possível ocorrência de um efeito de ampliação da exclusão social na participação democrática – a partir do uso reiterado do meio virtual para manifestações de interesse e vontade, já que, em tese, tal espaço tem uma população substancialmente menor do que o campo físico – offline. O caso de estudo que propicia as discussões é o GD do Rio Grande do Sul, devido à sua relevância e o reconhecimento como uma das experiências recentes mais prolíficas dentro da temática da Democracia Digital. Este estudo se deu a partir de dados primários e secundários. Foram realizadas entrevistas com atores-chave para o GD do Rio Grande do Sul, no intuito de conhecer suas motivações, conceitos e ações à época do projeto. Dentre os resultados das reflexões desta tese, chegou-se a uma série de ações que os estados poderiam empreender; assim como precauções que poderiam ser tomadas, de modo a estruturar seu campo democrático digital e, ao mesmo tempo, reduzir o risco da ciberelitização. Finalmente, como sugestão para futuras pesquisas a partir dessa temática, e considerando a complexidade envolvida num trabalho dessa natureza, indica-se aos futuros pesquisadores que investiguem as ações do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul em termos de inclusão social. Além disso, nos parece relevante conhecer em pesquisas vindouras as opiniões e as experiências dos usuários do GD, a fim de compreender a sua visão sobre o que foi atingido. / The advance of Information and Communications Technology and the mobilization capacity provided by its use has shown to the world that the future is changing: political regimes have been defied in the Middle East by digital movements; unpopular government have been suffering digital attacks by anonymous hackers groups in the whole world; people around the world have been chatting in real time and interacting through games online, with the circulation of a great amount of money in micro transactions. Considering this new digital way of interactions, the proposal of this study is to investigate the practices of Digital Democracy (subsidiarily to e-Government), focusing on the State structural actions in this field, and to allow the participation of the Civil Society in the government’s decision making and democracy. Also, is here the interest of knowing the conception and actions (or the lack of) by the State, in relation to the possible occurrence of Social Exclusion and CyberElitism on democratic participation process through the Internet. The case study selected here, the Digital Office of Rio Grande do Sul, is recognized as one of the most prolific of the recent experiences within the subject of Digital Democracy in Brazil. This study used from primary and secondary data. Interviews were conducted with key actors of the Digital Office of Rio Grande do Sul, in order to know their motivations, concepts and actions at the time of the project. Among the results of this study, a series of actions that states must undertake emerged, and also precautions that need to be taken in order to structure their digital democratic fields and, at the same time, to avoid the risk of cyberelitization. Considering the complexity of the issue, we suggest as guidelines for future researchers to continue this investigation seeking for the actions of the State of Rio Grande do Sul in terms of Social Inclusion. It would be equally relevant to investigate the views and experiences of the users of the Digital Office, i. e. the population.