Europeans have a say: Online debates and consultations in the EU

This research project investigated the quality of political discourses online, and seeked to identify how citizens input concerning political issues on a European level are reflected in current EU policy.
Basically, there is a big hope that new media enhance civic participation and counteract worrisome developments in political life such as declining voter turnouts. European governments and EU institutions have started to use new information and communication technologies to revive the political public sphere, which is supposed to be mainly characterised by deliberative discussions on issues of a common concern. In order to re-connect citizens to the political stage, the EU has set up an initiative called Your voice in Europe (http://europa.eu.int/yourvoice) which provides a space for online debates and consultations linked to profound questions on the future of Europe. Against the background of this EU initiative the project pursued four major objectives:

• To gauge and analyse the civic and discursive potential of the EUs interactive participation platforms for supporting an active citizenry.
• To identify whether the EUs online talkboards are appropriate spaces for dispassionate, reasoned and logical discussions where citizens learn from each other and reflect on issues before taking a decision.
• To illustrate where and how citizens input in online consultations finds expression in the EUs current policy.
• To detect future-oriented requirements which do not only support social-inclusive, effective and output-oriented online deliberation processes but also prove to be robust across various plausible scenarios.

Team:

• Dr. Ulrike Kozeluh (project leader)

Section: Technology and Knowledge

No partners added yet