This book explores the potential of the Internet for enabling new and flexible political participation modes. It meticulously illustrates how the Internet is responsible for citizens' participation practices from being general, high-threshold, temporally constricted, and dependent on physical presence to being topic-centered, low-threshold, temporally discontinuous, and independent from physical presence. With its ethnographic focus on Icelandic and German online participation tools Betri Reykjavík and LiquidFriesland, the book offers plentiful advice for citizens, programmers, politicians, and administrations alike on how to get the most out of online participation formats.
Author(s): Julia Tiemann-Kollipost
Series: Digital Society 25
Edition: 1
Publisher: Transcript Verlag
Year: 2020
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 225
Tags: Political Sociology; Political Activism; Political Participation: Technological Innovations: Iceland; Political Participation: Technological Innovations: Germany; Political Participation: Technological Innovations
Cover
Table of Content
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
2 State of Research
2.1 Update Loading? – (Re)defining Political Participation
2.2 Internet and Politics
2.3 Conclusion
3 Doing Ethnography I: Constructing Research Fields
4 Research Fields
4.1 LiquidFriesland
4.2 Betri Reykjavík
5 Doing Ethnography II:
Methods and Translating Them into Practice
6 Methodology
6.1 Participant Observation
6.2 Interviews
6.3 Focus Groups
6.4 Conclusion
7 Doing Ethnography III: Making Sense of the Data
8 Results and Discussion
8.1 Political Participation – A Definition?
8.2 Information Practices through the Ages
8.3 Communication within Online Participation Tools:
Software is Politics
8.4 Political Participation in the Digital Age
8.5 The Role of Geographical Proximity
in (Online) Political Participation
8.6 Conclusion
9 Conclusion
10 Appendix
