Whose voice is heard in online deliberation?: A study of participation and representation in political debates on the internet

One of the core elements of the vision of 'electronic democracy' is the hope that the Internet permits free and equal access to political debates. However, experiences with online discourse challenge this view. The digital divide being one obstacle to participation, even more interesting is the fact that online communication is constrained in ways similar to the offline world. This paper attempts to reassess the question of whether the Internet makes political debate more open to voices that are normally not heard in the political field. Based on empirical evidence from a large-scale online deliberation, it analyses who participates in political debates on the Internet and whose views are represented. The results challenge both the optimistic and the sceptical view on electronic democracy. A theoretical model is developed that is able to explain the results. It extends current research by including the cultural practices of technology use and the specific effects of large-scale communication in the analysis. Though preliminary this model can help to inform the designers of online deliberations to make the most of their democratic potential.     

Belohnungen und Bestrafungen im Netz: Verhaltenskontrolle in Chat-Foren

It is often lamented that the anonymity and physical distance of the Internet prevent effective punishment for antisocial behavior such as insulting, racist or sexist comments. It is thus claimed that anomie regins on the Internet. However, if we look at individual Internet forums and the virtual groups which frequent them, it becomes evident that behavioral rules are often explicated and a row of rewards and punishments are used for behavioral control. With the help of systematic behavioral observations, analysis of documents and field experiments in 24 selected chat forums in the IRC and WWW this study examines how people use technical and social sanctions to control each other’s behavior in computer-mediated communication. Boundaries and possibilities of behavioral control on the Internet are of interest both for those who use chat forums as well as for those who offer chat forums. Accordingly, practical consequences of the results of the study are discussed with special consideration given to the danger of abuse of power.     

Turning to the Internet for Help on Sensitive Medical Problems

The purpose of the present study was to examine how members of an online bulletin board group concerned with sleep paralysis (SP) use the Internet to establish what it means to experience the symptoms associated with a mysterious sleep disorder. Data from 646 posts to the bulletin board, and from ten in- depth interviews with select bulletin board users, revealed that board participants constructed their disorder in three different ways: while some considered it a purely physiological problem, others believed it to be a demonic attack or a paranormal phenomenon. Results indicated that people suffering from SP are driven to the Internet by their desire to make sense of their terrifying nocturnal experiences. Rather than dispelling the myths surrounding this sleep disorder, the Internet in this study was, however, found to reinforce them by offering a forum for the discussion of alternative explanatory frameworks.     

Risk news in the world of Internet newsgroups

The coming of the Internet has provided those who are able to benefit from it new ways of giving and seeking information. These new contexts of communication include newsgroups , very much a text-based form of interaction with little visual enhancement. In the new era of 'risk society' (Beck 1992) people make use of newsgroups to talk about the risks which now confront the world, in their pursuit of trustworthy information and informants. Using the affair of Mad Cow Disease (BSE), with particular reference to the crisis in 1996, this article explores the dynamics of news exchange via the newsgroups as a process which is Interactive, International, Interested and Intertextual. These characteristics result in a form of discourse through which participants engage in the interpersonal social construction of risk. The credibility of the proposition that BSE poses a health risk to humans is the focus of their discussions: they are concerned with the nature of the evidence for that proposition and with the reliability of the sources responsible for endorsing it.     

Internet Bibliotherapy

Abstract

Many individuals who use the Internet seek social support for health conditions. Some common “spaces” where asynchronous communication takes place include listservs (Usenet newsgroups or electronic mailing lists). Synchronous social support messages may be conveyed in “spaces” such as Internet Relay Chat or Multi-user domains. This research describes Internet bibliotherapy, a new type of “space” where social support is offered. This investigation reviews the therapeutic benefits of traditional bibliotherapy and the communication of social support. A narrative analysis of messages on a website devoted to helping people with anal fissures describes how social support is communicated using Internet bibliotherapy and the unique interactive and non-interactive properties of this type of reading simulated self help group.     

From Mad to Worse: Anger Management for Grades 3–4

ABSTRACT

This article examines how a web-based communication and information site was used as a forum to foster a sense of community among members of a graduate social work program in a multi-site, rural university setting. Results indicate that students made greater use of the site than faculty and those who used the site felt a greater sense of community. This article also explores the lessons learned in using this type of electronic discourse.     

Global Hakka: a case study

This paper is based on a case study of a small group of Hakkas who have left the village-town of Beruas in the state of Perak on the west coast of the Malaysian Peninsula to make their homes overseas – mostly in cultures which are very different from the Hakka environment in which they grew up. It looks at: the reasons why they left their hometown; how they identify themselves in their new place of residence; who they married; their offspring in relation to the their mother tongue (Hakka) and traditions; how they see the future of ‘Hakka culture’ and the social and cultural costs of living overseas and marrying outside the dialect.     

Staying inside: social withdrawal of the young,Finnish ‘Hikikomori’

This article explores socially withdrawn young Finnish people on an Internet forum who identify with the Japanese hikikomori phenomenon. We aim to overcome the dualism between sociology and psychology found in earlier research by referring to Pierre Bourdieu, who provides insights into how individual choices are constructed in accordance with wider social settings. We focus on the individual level and everyday choices, but we suggest that psychological factors (anxiety, depression) can be seen as properties of social relations rather than as individual states of mind, as young adults have unequal access to valued resources. We scrutinise young people’s specific reasoning related to the social and psychological factors and contingent life events that influence their choice to withdraw. An experience of inadequacy, a feeling of failure and a lack of self-efficacy are common experiences in the data. This indicates that young adults who identify with the hikikomori phenomenon find external society demanding and consider themselves lacking resources such as education, social networks or the personality type that they see as valued in society and as essential to ‘survival’. They also feel that they cannot control their life events, which may mean that they receive little help in their everyday lives.     

Networks of Contention: The Shape of Online Transnationalism in Early Twenty-First Century Social Movement Coalitions

The study of new media use by transnational social movements is central to contemporary investigations of social contention. In order to shed light on the terrain in which the most recent examples of online mobilization have grown and developed, this paper combines the interest in the transnational dynamics of social contention and the exploration of the use of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) for protest action. In specific terms, the study investigates how early twenty-first century social movement coalitions used Internet tools to build symbolically transnational collective identities. By applying a hyperlink network analysis approach, the study focuses on a website network generated by local chapters of the World Social Forum (WSF), one of the earliest social movement coalitions for global justice. The sample network, selected through snowball sampling, is composed of 222 social forum websites from around the world. The study specifically looks at hyperlinks among social forum websites as signs of belonging and potential means of alliance. The analysis uses network measures, namely of cohesion, centrality, structural equivalence and homophily, to test dynamics of symbolic collective identification underlying the WSF coalition. The findings show that in early twenty-first century transnational contention, culture and place still played a central role in the emergence of transnational movement networks.     

Bringing Technology to School: An Online Resource Guide for the School Social Worker

SUMMARY

The Internet can assist social workers and other human service professionals to obtain information that may potentially benefit both themselves and their clients. There is little doubt among those who are familiar with the Internet that this electronic medium has revolutionized the way we communicate and access knowledge. This article provides school social workers and other human service professionals with links to resources that can be incorporated into practice by offering specific Web pages related to school social work practice.     

Non-profit organizations bridging the communication divide in a complex South Africa

Purpose

South Africa's post-apartheid governments have made remarkable progress in consolidating the nation's peaceful transition to democracy, but many South Africans still view themselves and each other according to stigmatizing categories. As the country's remarkable and peaceful transition to democracy unfolds, millions, both urban and rural, are still confronted with having to survive unemployment, homelessness, lack of basic services, HIV/Aids, food insecurity and unacceptable levels of crime and violence. Confronted by the complexity of our development challenges, one of our biggest failures is a lack of communication, trust, common purpose, collaborative leadership and sustainable relationships between the various sectors and stakeholders in development. Transforming South Africa's society to remove the legacy of marginalization will be a long-term process requiring the sustained commitment of the leaders and people of the nation's diverse groups. So the question remains: how can non-profit organizations (NPOs) establish themselves as development providers within the uncertain political arena, of which South Africa is characteristic, in order to represent all the masses who cannot speak for themselves and more than often find themselves in a marginalized and stigmatized position?

Principle results

Some Non-profit organizations recognize that their relationships with stakeholders is of great importance for their survival, various forms of communication take place without the necessary planning and without clear objectives for the development of these relationships. NPOs need a positive image and reputation due to financial implications where they do not have sufficient funds to support or market themselves effectively. In this climate of polarization NPOs play a pivotal role in providing a voice to the poor, mobilizing a motion of change and creating a platform for relationships, credibility and trust. Within the theoretical framework of relationship management theory, the interests of all stakeholders are balanced through the management of the stakeholder relationships.

Major conclusions

Non-profit organizations need to ensure that they protect their stakeholders (especially those who are in desperate need of the services rendered by these organizations), deliver better services and although not operating for the purpose of making a profit, manage themselves so that they do generate profit which will enable them to support themselves especially when funding is something that is becoming a rare phenomenon. Although NPOs find themselves in difficult financial times they need to renovate and almost reinvent themselves, in order to be fully capable to address many social problems in SA and to indicate to those who support them (especially financially) that they are to be trusted, committed to make a difference, that they deliver on their promises and to ensure open communication channels with all their stakeholders. NPOs need to manage their reputations which are built on their corporate identities because it is the organization's reputation that often creates a lifeline in uncertain times. If the NPOs succeed in managing their identities effectively, it may serve as the foundation for developing and maintaining relationships with their respective stakeholders which in turn could change the face of South Africa's society. These organizations might go about creating a platform for dialog in an attempt to build sustainable productive relationships that can go about uplifting and empowering those who would otherwise not have such an opportunity.     

Diaspora,Community and Communication: Internet Use in Transnational Haiti

Abstract With its capacity to link many people interactively across great distances, the Internet seems to be the ultimate tool for dispersed ethnic groups wishing to sustain identity in an ‘alien’ land and work in solidarity with those facing challenges at ‘home’. Some theorists speak of the creation of diasporic public spheres arising from creative use of Internet technologies. Nevertheless, scholars working in this area rarely embed their analyses within existing work on the public sphere. In the present study I use insights from public sphere theory to evaluate participants' use of a Haiti Global Village forum. After examining Haiti Global Village, I conclude that such forums offer needed space for civic deliberation and provide a valuable infrastructure for networking. Participants' difficulty in translating these assets into an off‐line project, however, highlights the importance of place‐based social ties. Consideration of the experience of other Haitian forums reinforces the importance of such ties.     

VoiceYourView: anytime, anyplace, anywhere user participation

Citizens are increasingly called upon to comment on issues that directly concern them. However, such consultations may be tokenistic [1] as they occur with limited respondents, or may be at a time, or in a format which is inconvenient to the user. To encourage wider participation, the VoiceYourView project (vYv) has developed a system allowing people to make comments in a manner, time and place convenient to them. A real world trial of the prototype system was conducted at Coventry University campus to explore issues related to the system's usability and usage, as a means of enabling campus users to comment on their environment. Members of the university population were invited to comment on the university estate using one of five technologies (e-mail, online form, iPhone app, SMS message, or electronic kiosk). Although the immediate application area in this case was the design of public spaces, the approach can be transferred to other domains and thus provide a new way of gathering user information. Submitted comments were automatically analysed in terms of theme, sentiment, location and actionability and displayed online in a 2D visualisation. It is argued that that online data collection (crowd sourcing and skimming social networks) may provide a rich source of information for future ergonomists.     

Couples Who Live Apart: Time/Place Disjunctions And Their Consequences*

Couples who live apart present a unique opportunity to study the consequences of tampering with our culture's marital co-residence norm. Interviews with 37 spouses, representing members of 21 couples who are legally married and who live apart in service to career demands of both, suggest that time and place discontinuities result from two residence living. Two residences mean that spouses are not able to mesh and coordinate time schedules, nor do they share the common base of their co-resident counterparts. The time/place disjunctions that result threaten these marriages' ability to “make sense” to the partners of such unions. This paper examines the sense-jeopardizing consequence of living apart and suggest that this marital form's inherent strains make it a difficult lifestyle.     

Policymaking in the Age of Internet: Is the Internet Tending to Make Policy Networks More or Less Inclusive?

Although many policy and political scientists have studied theInternet's role in electoral and organizational processes, thereis little work that examines the Internet's effect on policyprocesses. Has the Internet tended to make policy deliberationsmore inclusive? Has it affected patterns of influence reputationamong network participants? Has the Internet helped to bringnew organizations into policy debates? This study provides preliminaryanswers to these questions. Treating policy networks as a typeof interorganizational network, a "socialized" resource dependenceframework is developed. Deployment of the Internet is conceptualizedas an exogenous shock, where the shock alters the material resourcebase of a policy network and allows actors inside and outsidethe network to challenge structural power holders. Structuralpower holders attempt to "mold" use of the Internet to protecttheir position and its perquisites. To test this framework data were collected from two policy networksin "Newstatia"—one focused on adult basic education policyand the other on mental health policy. Both policy networksappear to have become more exclusive since the deployment ofthe Internet. Electronic central discussion networks (or "cores")were primarily populated by actors who were already entrenchedin positions of structural power within the network and possessedvery high influence ratings. Most Internet communication occursbetween members of the electronic core. At least preliminarily,the Internet appears to reinforce existing patterns of authorityand influence.     

Lesbians in China's mainland: a brief introduction

This paper describes and introduces lesbians' lives and the relevant research in China's Mainland. The first part shows the slow development of lesbian culture in the form of literature, films and documentaries. Although lesbians' lives were reflected more or less in modern literature, the "true" lesbian novel was published only recently. Relevant films and documentaries were never shown to the public in China. Lesbian culture is still unevenly developed and remains negligible. The first part also describes lesbian research in the field of literature, psychiatry and sociology. The relevant research in literature is relatively systematic and rich, while that in psychiatry is fraught with discrimination and that in sociology is relatively weak. The second part presents the observation and analysis of lesbian Internet communities. It deals with lesbians' self-identity, role differentiation, sentiments and sexuality. Among them, role differentiation plays an important part in lesbians' lives though few researchers have studied it. Most lesbian organizations founded on the strength of Internet communication lack experience and resources and have little influence on the masses. Some lesbians are accepted by the public, but in return, they compromise to some popular values. This is extremely disadvantageous to those who are unwilling to give in. At the end of the paper, the first author expresses her future plan that she will continue her study on lesbian culture under the help of Internet observation and various activities. doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_08.     

Living in virtual communities: an ethnography of human relationships in cyberspace

This paper outlines some of the issues involved in the development of human relationships in cyberspace. Set within the wider context of the Internet and society it investigates how geographically distant individuals are coming together on the Internet to inhabit new kinds of social spaces or virtual communities. People 'live in' and 'construct' these new spaces in such a way as to suggest that the Internet is not a placeless cyberspace that is distinct and separate from the real world. Building on the work of other cyberethnographers, the author combines original ethnographic research in Cybercity, a Virtual Community, with face-to-face meetings to illustrate how, for many people, cyberspace is just another place to meet. Second, she suggests that people in Cybercity are investing as much effort in maintaining relationships in cyberspace as in other social spaces. Her preliminary analysis suggests that by extending traditional human relationships into Cybercity, they are widening their webs of relationships, not weakening them. Human relationships in cyberspace are formed and maintained in similar ways to those in wider society. Rather than being exotic and removed from real life, they are actually being assimilated into everyday life. Furthermore, they are often moved into other social settings, just as they are in offline life.     

Neighborhoods in the Network Society the e-Neighbors study

This study examines whether the Internet is increasingly a part of everyday neighborhood interactions, and in what specific contexts Internet use affords the formation of local social ties. Studies of Internet and community have found that information and communication technologies provide new opportunities for social interaction, but that they may also increase privatism by isolating people in their homes. This paper argues that while the Internet may encourage communication across great distances, it may also facilitate interactions near the home. Unlike traditional community networking studies, which focus on bridging the digital divide, this study focuses on bridging the divide between the electronic and parochial realms. Detailed, longitudinal social network surveys were completed with the residents of four contrasting neighborhoods over a period of three years. Three of the four neighborhoods were provided with a neighborhood email discussion list and a neighborhood website. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to model over time the number of strong and weak ties, emailed, met in-person, and talked to on the telephone. The neighborhood email lists were also analyzed for content. The results suggest that with experience using the Internet, the size of local social networks and email communication with local networks increases. The addition of a neighborhood email list further increases the number of weak neighborhood ties, but does not increase communication multiplexity. However, neighborhood effects reduce the influence of everyday Internet use, as well as the experimental intervention, in communities that lack the context to support local tie formation.