Electronic participation through social media

It is widely acknowledge that many of e-Participation initiatives often attract wider audience and face serious limited citizens’ involvement. The use of social media has been seen as a hope to remedy such limitation. However, despite the recently adoption of social media the lack of citizens’ involvement in e-Participation initiatives still remains. This ongoing research paper aims at producing a general overview of e-Participation through social media. So far, the latest research works on such topic have been predominantly focused on a political context of e-Participation, where politicians-citizens interactions and activities are the central interest of the studies. Little existing studies investigate e-Participation in its own right in government context. The findings also reveal that the majority of e-Participation through social media initiatives are more informative than interactive, since few initiatives have been found that aim to considerably enhance citizen participation in policy decision making.This work has been supported by Portuguese FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology within the Project Scope UID /CEC / 00319/2013info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Use of Electronic Participation Tools in Urban Planning Projects in Toronto, Ontario

The public’s involvement in urban planning projects has been a contested and evolving topic. In this paper, I address how planners have changed their approach to participation in planning and how they are incorporating electronic participation tools into that process. I have adapted the assessment framework by Tambouris, Liotas and Tarabanis (2007) for the use of electronic participation tools in public policy consultations to urban planning projects. I evaluated eighteen active urban planning projects in Toronto, Ontario, comparing how these projects are using electronic participation tools to engage the community. I found that electronic participation tools are, for the most part, being used to inform members of the community rather than for drawing feedback and that these tools are not being used to create opportunities for the community to make substantial changes to the projects. Members of the community who are using the electronic participation tools are self-selected participants and therefore tend to be more likely to engage in planning processes generally. The main take away from my research is that urban planning projects in Toronto are integrating electronic participation tools into their participation strategy, but the electronic participation tools are not being used strategically to remedy current barriers and gaps to participation

Professional Responsibilities and Procedures Committee Minutes, January 18, 2006

Electronic Participation in Tenure and Promotion Meetings Code Defining Lecturer Ranks and External Review of Lecturers Ombudsperson Electronic Participation in Tenure and Promotion Meetings Senate Committee Meeting Policy Reasons for Non-renewal Previous PPRC Busines

Hit the bull's-eye: electronic participation through social media

This paper presents research findings of reviewing 42 studies concerning electronic participation (e-Participation) through social media. Overall, such initiatives have reflected the prevalence of a one-way communication strategy, what do not considerably foster citizen involvement in policy decision making process.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Power of Information Channels: Participation in e-Government Discourse

This study examines the collective use of the electronic information and communication channels and their impact on citizen participation for public discourse. Using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, we investigate public communication channels available for government service provision in a large metropolis in China. Specifically, four electronic communication channels are analyzed to assess the impacts of diverse dimensions for electronic participation from citizens to governmental discourse. Upon completion, the study will provide a useful framework with insights for both researchers and practitioners in the power of electronic information and communication channels in electronic participation in the public discourse

Electronic participation in a comparative perspective: institutional determinants of performance

Electronic participation can play a crucial role in building broader public involvement in decision-making and public policy to bring about more inclusive societies. Prior empirical analyses have neglected the fact that political institutions are not only affecting the expansion of digital government, but also often interact with more structural conditions to constrain or incentivize the adoption and expansion of e-participation. This research analyses the role of institutional factors in encouraging or constraining e-participation across countries. Fractional regression models are employed to analyze panel data (2008-2018) from the United Nations Member States scores in the E-Participation Index (EPI) developed by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). The results indicate that the quality of democratic institutions, freedom of the press, and government effectiveness are all relevant predictors of a higher performance in e-participation. Policy implications are drawn in line with the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals

Developing electronic participation framework for public policy formulation in Malaysia

Electronic participation (e-participation) is a research domain that focuses on the development of information and communication technology (ICT) to support participation in a nation‟s governance processes. One of the problems in implementing this process in Malaysia is the lack of participation from its citizens in providing inputs to be used in the nation‟s public policy formulation processes. In addition, there is a lack of research on e-participation and framework that supports the public policy formulation. Therefore, in this study, the researcher attempts to look at how the public can involve and play their part in the process of drafting the nation‟s public policies by utilizing the information technology mechanism. The main objective of this study is to develop a framework for the implementation of e�participation in the public policy formulation processes. To achieve this objective, the public‟s levels of perception and satisfaction with the current Government‟s e�participation initiatives in the public policy formulation and implementation process are identified. Questionnaires, interviews, observations, and analysis of relevant documents were the methods used in this study. Actor Network Theory (ANT) from the socio-technological perspective was applied in this study in order to analyze the development of the e-participation framework. The proposed e-participation framework was then assessed using the Delphi Method to seek the consensus from the experts appointed. As a result, the e-participation framework for public participation in Malaysia was successfully developed. This e-participation framework enables people to jointly contribute towards the formulation of public policy. From the theoretical perspective, the framework implies that ANT provides a strong foundation for policy making process of aligning the heterogeneous nature of public participation. In practice, the ICT tools for public participation will hopefully enable a wider participation in contributing to a democratic practice. Keywords: Citizen participation, Electronic participation, Public policy, Actor Network Theory (ANT), Delphi Metho

Electronic participation with a special reference to social media - a literature review

As a consequence of the interdisciplinary nature of Electronic Partici-pation (e-Participation), current research on the field is fragmented and scattered. The exciting blurry boundaries and the immature identity of the field are making difficult the understanding of the main domain themes being investigated, in par-ticular for “neophytes” researchers. In practice, several e-Participation initiatives often attract a wide audience but face serious limitations regarding involvement of those who attract. Recently, the potential of using social media to address cit-izens’ involvement deficit has been subject of academic debate. By consulting 44 e-Participation papers, considered highly relevant to the aforementioned chal-lenges, this paper produces a general overview of e-Participation research, par-ticularly through social media. The findings show that the e-Participation field still faces the challenge of identity and strive for gaining wider recognition as an independent research area. Concerning e-Participation through social media which seems to be partly overlooked in the field research, the politicians-citizen’s interaction has dominated scholars' attention and the adoption of such initiatives sponsored and driven by governments are rarely examine. Based on the findings, several research suggestions, which could play a significant contribution to advance future e-Participation research, are proposed

Electronic participation and its relationship with e-government, government effectiveness and accountability

No alvorecer do século XXI, os modelos tradicionais já não conseguem dar respostas satisfatórias às demandas da sociedade, precipitando uma nova reinvenção do Estado. Esse período corresponde, por um lado, à emergência de modernas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC), ubíquas e interativas. Por outro lado, essa fase é marcada pela crescente fragmentação do poder estatal, em paralelo com o aumento proporcional de regimes democráticos no mundo. Nesse contexto, emerge a “Governança Responsiva”, modelo orientado por princípios de responsabilização, transparência e participação, no qual a efetividade se vincula a seu atributo-chave: a responsividade. Portanto, torna-se fundamental aprofundar o entendimento dessa mudança de paradigma, em particular no que tange ao papel desempenhado pelo governo. O presente artigo tem como objetivo analisar as relações entre a participação eletrônica e três aspectos-chave: governo eletrônico, efetividade governamental e responsabilização dos agentes públicos (accountability). Para tanto, lançou-se mão de uma abordagem dedutiva e objetiva da qual derivou uma estratégia de trabalho de natureza quantitativa, com emprego do método de análise bivariada denominado correlação linear de Pearson. Em suma, constatou-se que altos índices de desenvolvimento do governo eletrônico estão correlacionados a altos índices de participação eletrônica. Além disso, verificou-se que quanto mais elevado o nível de participação eletrônica, mais elevado o nível de efetividade governamental e também de responsabilização dos agentes públicos.At the dawn of the XXI century, traditional models are no longer able to give satisfactory answers to the society demands, precipitating a new reinvention of the State. This corresponds, on the one hand, to the emergence of modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), ubiquitous and interactive. On the other hand, this phase is marked by the increasing fragmentation of State power in parallel with the proportional increase of democratic regimes around the world. In this context emerges the “Responsive Governance”, a model driven by principles of accountability, transparency and participation, where effectiveness is linked to its key attribute: responsiveness. This article aims to analyze the relations between electronic participation and three key aspects: e-government, government effectiveness and accountability. To do so, it employed a deductive and objective approach which derived a working strategy of quantitative nature using a bivariate analysis method called the Pearson correlation. In short, it was found that high rates of development of government are correlated with high levels of electronic participation. Furthermore, it was found that the higher the level of electronic participation the higher the level of government effectiveness and also accountability