Post in Introductions

2006 Jul 13 13:15 UTC

Hi,

  My name is Francisco Paulo Jamil and I am a PhD student at Universidade
Federal da Bahia, Brazil (Department of Communication Â www.poscom.ufba.br).
We have a research group which counts on masterÂs and doctoral students under
supervision of doctor Wilson Gomes. WeÂve discussed mainly on democratic
theory and new media, examining different levels of participation that
democratic institutions offer to citizens employing the Internet (I just wrote
a paper named ÂLevels of Citizens' participation in Congressional
Representatives' WebsitesÂ, which compares how American and Brazilian senators
employ their websites to provide opportunities to citizens participate).
Currently, I am spending one year in the USA doing part of my thesis under
supervision of doctor James Bohman, in St. Louis.

  If anyone work on similar ideas, please, let me know.

  Best wishes,

  Francisco Paulo Jamil

Edemocracy Ferguson <<email obscured>> escreveu:
Hello

I'm Ross Ferguson, Director of eDemocracy at the Hansard Society
(www.hansardsociety.org.uk/programmes/e-democracy).

Hansard Society is an independent, non-partisan educational charity working to
promote democracy and strengthen parliamentary engagement. We are based in the
UK.

All the Programmes here start with the belief that citizens should have more
opportunities to engage with politicians and political institutions between
elections. The novelty of the eDemocracy Programme is that we are exploring how
technology is being used to provide these more open, inclusive and meaningful
channels.

I am currently working on:

- 'Citizen Calling'... a pilot using mobile phones to help select committees
run public inquiries;
- 'Digital Dialogues'... a pilot to build central government's capacity to
conduct consultation online;
- 'Tell Parliament'... development of Parliament's capacity to use deliberative
online forums for public consultations;
- Joint research paper with NCVO on the influence of ICT on democracy and
activism from the perspective of the voluntary and charitable organisations;
- Joint research project with Dr Steve Ward on the influence of blogging on
democratic engagement.

I'd be very interested to hear from anyone working in similar areas (which I
suppose everyone is); I'd also be happy to answer any queries about our work. I
am keen to strike up partnerships with those exploring issues around of why
participation in eDemocracy exercises remains a niche pursuit, and why
commitment from policy-makers to mainstreaming technology-led participation is
still piece-meal.

Cheers,

Ross
Member profile for Edemocracy:
http://groups.dowire.org/main/contacts/edemocracy