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Understanding eParticipation Contemporary PhD eParticipation research in Europe Editors Anders Avdic, Karin Hedström, Jeremy Rose, Åke Grönlund DEMO-net Understanding eParticipation - Contemporary PhD eParticipation research in Europe DEMO-net Understanding eParticipation Contemporary PhD eParticipation Studies in Europe Understanding eParticipation - Contemporary PhD eParticipation research in Europe DEMO-net Editors Anders Avdic Karin Hedström Jeremy Rose Åke Grönlund Authors Pauliina Lehtonen Ulrica Löfstedt Marek Zielinski Annelie Ekelin Stefanie Roeder Jesus Rios Robert Krimmer Rony Medaglia Stéphanie Wojcik Anthony Ziba Roman Winkler Maja Turnšek Pia Brundin Title Understanding eParticipation – Contemporary PhD eParticipation Studies in Europe Publisher Örebro University Library ISBN 978-91-7668-530-3 Understanding eParticipation - Contemporary PhD eParticipation research in Europe DEMO-net Understanding eParticipation Contemporary PhD eParticipation Studies in Europe Pauliina Lehtonen Ulrica Löfstedt Marek Zielinski Annelie Ekelin Stefanie Roeder Jesus Rios Robert Krimmer Rony Medaglia Stéphanie Wojcik Anthony Ziba Roman Winkler Maja Turnšek Pia Brundin Understanding eParticipation - Contemporary PhD eParticipation research in Europe DEMO-net Understanding eParticipation - Contemporary PhD eParticipation research in Europe DEMO-net Acknowledgements This book has been produced as a project within the DEMO-net Network of Excellence as part of the integration strategy and the PhD training program. The project has included two workshops and three rounds of reviews engaging several DEMO-net faculty and PhD students. The editors would like to thank everyone who has been involved in some part of this process; Maria Wimmer, Ann Macintosh, Anna Freschi, Colin Fraser, Christos Halaris, Claudia Soria, Damiana Curti, Emma Eliason, Nicoletta Calzolari, Gregoris Mentzas, Jacob Nørbjerg, Yiannis Verginadis, Naoum Liotas, Flavia Marzano, Oliver Märker, Kim Viborg Andersen, Peter Mambrey, Tomas Sabol, Silvana Carminati, Efthimios Tambouris, Helle Zinner Henriksen, Clive Sanford, Mathias Hatakka, Andreas Ask. Understanding eParticipation - Contemporary PhD eParticipation research in Europe DEMO-net Understanding eParticipation - Contemporary PhD eParticipation research in Europe DEMO-net Table of Content Introduction ...........................................................................................................1 Jeremy Rose, Åke Grönlund, Kim Viborg Andersen Citizens’ web as a public space. Developing community practices in the framework of eParticipation...................................................................................17 Pauliina Lehtonen User-centred design and development of local public e-Services.........................39 Ulrica Löfstedt Privacy protection in eParticipation: guiding the anonymisation of microdata ..............................................................................................................57 Marek P. Zielinksi Situating eParticipation .........................................................................................71 Annelie Ekelin Online-moderation in eParticipation – socio-technical dynamics in multi polar communication .............................................................................................85 Stefanie Roeder Supporting participatory budget elaboration through the web ...............................103 Jesus Rios Case study-based development of an eParticipation process model....................115 Robert Krimmer The diffusion of eParticipation in English and Italian local government.................131 Rony Medaglia How does eDeliberation work? A study of French local electronic forums ............153 Stéphanie Wojcik Technology choices and ‘literacies’ for eParticipation in Malawi ...........................167 Anthony Ziba Online deliberation: Towards a research framework for the assessment of online debates.......................................................................................................183 Roman Winkler “The digital youth revolt?” Young people and eParticipation ................................201 Maja Turnšek Just another communication tool? NGO perceptions of the Internet as a political space........................................................................................................217 Pia Brundin Understanding eParticipation - Contemporary PhD eParticipation research in Europe DEMO-net Understanding eParticipation - Contemporary PhD eParticipation research in Europe 1 1 Introduction Jeremy Rose Åke Grönlund Kim Viborg Andersen This book is the first comprehensive volume from the EU-funded1 DEMO-net (http://www.demo-net.org) network of excellence (NoE), which is devoted to integrating, encouraging, promoting, supporting, and reflecting upon eParticipation research. The book presents contemporary European research in matters pertinent to eParticipation by means of a collection of 13 chapters each describing a PhD research project of which some are in the early-mid stages of their PhD project and others are close to finish their dissertation. One important objective of the book is also to contribute to DEMO-net’s integration task. This book has been produced as an integrative project of DEMO- net. All chapters in the book have been presented at PhD workshops held as part of the DEMO-net integration strategy. This first workshop was held in Krakow in September 2006 in conjunction with the EGOV 06 conference. A second one was held in Athens in December 2006 in conjunction with a DEMO-net project meeting. In between the workshops, and after the Athens meeting, there has been a review process involving many DEMO-net faculty as well as PhD students. From the originally 25 contributions we eventually arrived at the set of 13 chapters presented in this book. This collection of projects is of course by no means a complete overview of ongoing research, but it does reflects the breadth of the field and highlights some salient issues as well as some that may not yet be so obviously apparent but still represent important fields where well designed participation using ICT – eParticipation – is increasingly an important success factor. While the book reflects the field it is also contributing to shaping it. eParticipation is a growing field and while we here provide a contemporary snapshot and some frameworks for understanding the research yet much research and development remains to be done the field will continue to grow in different directions. This book is also a part of PhD education. One of the tasks of DEMO- net is to provide a curriculum for PhD training, and this book is the first tangible example of these efforts. The colloquiums and the review process are elements of implementation, and the view of the eParticipation field that we have conveyed to students is shaped by other DEMO-net activities including research on methods, tools, drivers and barriers, etc. This introductory chapter is designed as follows. First we present a discussion of the concept of eParticipation and the developments behind it. Then a model for understanding the approaches eParticipation is presented, which based on the 1 DEMO-net is funded under the European Commission’s sixth framework program: Information Society Technologies IST (FP6-2004-27219). DEMO-net is funded for the period 2006-2010 involving 20 core partners’ institutions spread across 12 countries. During its first year more than 110 associated Institutions, Co-operating Networks, Affiliated Experts, PhD Student Members, and Interested Parties have joined the network. Understanding eParticipation - Contemporary PhD eParticipation research in Europe 2 Introduction criteria the purpose of research and the object of study defines five forms of such research; descriptive, normative, reformist, critical, partisan and regulative. We conclude the introduction by relating the papers to the domain of eParticipation development, implementation, and use. 2 What is eParticipation? The focus of DEMO-net is how to support democratic processes by means of various ICT applications employed both to facilitate communication in general based on emerging practices on the Internet and to redesign existing processes. Around the turn of the century “e-democracy” had become the most frequently used term for ICT use in democratic processed. This term originally had a broad meaning ranging from various forms of politicians consulting with citizens to more focused communication such as e-petitioning and e-panels to electronic voting (Grönlund 2001; 2002). Very quickly, however, the term became closely associated with e-voting only, which created some problems. First, focus became too narrow to cater for all the innovative forms of communication that emerged. Second, the term e-voting became associated with a largely negative development. The anticipated increased voter turnout that had spurred the interest in it was not realised. The technical opportunity to vote electronically does not alone promote increased interest in politics. There were also concerns about the security of e-voting. While there are secure systems, many providers were not open about the security of their systems and there were indeed some scandals where security was infringed upon. Finally, and arguably most important, e-democracy is much more than voting. Opinion forming, open information, rights of voice, participatory processes etc. are equally important as the voting itself. To the extent the e-democracy is equalled

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