What can Web 2.0 do for deliberative democracy?

Thèmes abordés

Democratie participation abstention

Résumé du document

Democracy and political practices have already gone a long way since the birth of Internet: online campaigns, online votes, speeches on videos that can be watched over and over on video-sharing websites. Internet has transformed the reality of the political bubble in many ways and nowadays, and since 2001, the web 2.0 has made a sensational breakthrough into our lives. It has changed again our habits when using the Internet: dotcoms changed from being simple one way information resources into more functional and interactive resources where users concur to participate. From this perspective, ways of communicating have become, from then on, boundless, and as Internet is spread all around the world and covers more than one household out of two, it gives politics a new approach in the way it can reach people and arouse their interest.

In Europe, the turnout at the polls keep decreasing . In 2009, 53% of European Union citizens stated that they were "not at all interested" or "rather not interested" in the EU elections. Indeed, turnout has decreased at every ballot since direct elections were first held in 1979. 2004 set the latest record, with a combined EU turnout of just 45.5%. This major decrease happened despite an expensive promotional campaign and the increasing use of multimedia technology to spread awareness. The EU, as every political organization, is struggling to stimulate citizen interest, whether it uses NTIC or not.

Citizens feel left behind, all social classes feel abandoned, and politics is losing credibility at a crazy rate, latest polls show. And it is a trite saying that in a free country public opinion rules.
W. Lance Bennett says in his article "Changing citizenship in the Digital age": "candidates seldom appeal directly to young voters on their own terms about their concerns; politicians have poisoned the public well with vitriol and negative campaigning, and young people see the media filled with inauthentic performances from officials who are staged by professional communication managers". And the press and the enthusiasm for celebrities do not help: politics are not taken as seriously as they used to be. They are regarded as random celebrities; the press brings their private life out into the open as their tax frauds become the daily bread and popular headlines. We have come into an era of knowledge and speed. Internet users in France are able to watch videos of an earthquake in China via Twitter before any journalists have even heard of it. Information flow is incredibly fast and people constantly need new information on the latest scoops.

Extraits

[...] What can Web 2.0 do for deliberative democracy? Democracy and political practices have already gone a long way since the birth of Internet: online campaigns, online votes, speeches on videos that can be watched over and over on video-sharing websites Internet has transformed the reality of the political bubble in many ways and nowadays, and since 2001, the web 2.0 has made a sensational breakthrough in our lives. It has changed again our habits to use the Internet: dotcoms turned being simple one way information resources into more functional and interactive where users concur to participate. [...]

[...] Easy to follow: very feasible. I have been returned more than 40 answers. Among them, students, teachers, workers, nurses, a policeman, a doctor and a graphic designer of them have answered and only one person answered N°3. Even if 40 persons cannot stand for a whole population, it shows that people are quite lost concerning political debates and that they lose interest quickly when it is about political decision-making. One of the main principles in communication is to adapt your message to your audience and use proper words and ways to survey the message. [...]

[...] Everyone would be able to register to each category to follow only what they are interested in. For example, a nurse would register to the category cuts” and “education and research”. If she has a new generation cellphone such as Blackberry or Iphone, she would be able to check new tweets about the topics she likes at every moment of the day. Every tweets would enquire about time, speaker, political tendency, place and precise topic. In that purpose, she would always be able to be up to date about what is happening in her working sector, she would know who talked, when, where and about what precise topic. [...]

[...] This method would take advantage of the fact that people act and raise only for what they believe in, and the fact that the information is given in a twitter-style would satisfy the desire of people to have always more information: between tweets and web users' debates, the flow would be fast, continuous and easy to read. A carefully handpicked journalist or chronicler or several - would be in charge of retranscribing the important points mentioned by the politician in question. Journalists in charge of that delicate task would have no official political tendency, he would have to be perfectly clean of any political party membership and would be specialized in the category he has to transmit to the web user (health, education, etc). [...]

[...] If they feel concerned, they would do it, if not, they would continue their way and they would not sign it. And yet, it was easy: easier than log on the computer and look for trustworthy information about politics on the Internet. Tools are not, as far as I am concerned about this issue, the best solution. If people do not feel part of something, they will not make a step forwards, whether it be online nor in real life. [...]