The best of Democratic Audit’s 2014 coverage of democracy’s technological advance

Is the future of democracy digital? In 2014, Democratic Audit UK carried numerous pieces of analysis, research, and argument concerning the interplay between technology, politics, parties, and representation, with the best appearing below in the latest of our 2014 round-ups.

Most political parties completely fail to respond to email enquiries, wasting an opportunity for politicians to reconnect with voters online

Voters seeking to connect with political parties are likely to be sorely disappointed if they try contacting a party by email. This is the key finding of new research by Cristian Vaccari, who tested parties in seven countries by sending email enquiries, both asking about political issues and offering to volunteer. The response rate was staggering, and similar across all countries: the majority of emails received no specific response from the parties whatsoever. In this post he shares his detailed results.

Public engagement on the Internet of Things is essential if we are to put societal values at the centre of technological developments

How do we ensure that the ‘next big thing’ – the Internet of Things – be harnessed for the public good? Sonia Bussu of Involve argues that the involvement of the public is key to ensure that a common language is developed, and that societal values at put at the centre of technological developments.

Digital technology can help create the broader cultural change needed to address limitations in our current democratic system

The Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy was set up by John Bercow this year to assess ways in which democracy could benefit from digital solution. Ali Stoddart, in a recent talk at a Commission event, argued that digital democracy is a possibility, and that it can help to create a context in which the wider cultural change needed to address to reinvigorate Britain’s ailing democracy can take hold.

In the digital era, political activism can be individual as well as collective

The internet has changed society in numerous different ways, and with it has influenced the nature of political activism. Rebecca Rumbul argues that this can entail a shift from collective action along traditional participatory lines, to individual action, with web users able to act alone on the issues that interest and motivate them.

Connecting knowledge to power: the future of digital democracy in the UK

Since its invention, the internet has been considered a ‘game-changer’ when it comes to democracy, with a worldwide network providing the potential to create a truly participatory democracy. This has yet to happen, but numerous individuals and groups are beginning to ask what can be done to marry the internet with representative democracy, including the Speaker of the House of Commons. Here, Chris Waller and Louis Reynolds discuss an exciting new project which seeks to use a wiki approach to crowdsource a submission to the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy.

Fahrenheit 404: Party attitudes to web archiving are a worrying sign for digital-era democracy

November of last year saw a spate of “cyber-revisionism” by both Labour and the Tories as the parties attempted to erase archived material from their websites and, in the Conservative case, from the wider web. To Josh Cowls and Mor Rubenstein this revelation is just another particularly pronounced example of the actual experience of political parties on the internet falling far from the original ideal. They explore how the attempts at online censorship may have backfired and some of the implications for democracy in the age of the internet.

‘Civic Conversations’ facilitated by social media can help to reshape the relationship between citizens and local government

Amidst heated contemporary policy debates about the shifting roles and responsibilities of local government and citizen-local state relations, it is timely to ask if social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter afford opportunities for new forms of interaction. Nick Ellison and Jo Orchard-Webb explore the idea of ‘civic conversations’ as a means of understanding the potential role that social media might play in re-shaping localized political/civic engagement between citizens and local authorities.

Social media may have the potential to truly enhance our democracy, but there is still distance to go

What role can social media play in our democracy, and will its potential to affect genuine change be effectively harnessed? In a recent event in the Palace of Westminster, Carl Miller and Alessia Tranchese of Demos scoped where social media is and can have an effect, concluding that we still have a long way to go before we reach a genuinely digital democracy, despite the prominent role played by Twitter, Facebook, and co during the Arab Spring, the Everyday Sexism campaign, and Italy’s Five Star Movement.

Internet voting: coming to a computer near you, though more research is needed to eliminate the risks

Internet voting could represent an effective way to improve the accessibility of voting, and contribute to an increase in electoral turnout amongst the young. But while the internet is sufficiently safe for conducting bank transactions, this is not yet the case for politically binding elections. However, with research into the areas of concern progressing quickly, that will not be the case indefinitely, argue Mark Ryan and Gurchetan S. Grewal.

Parliamentary websites, transparency and the quality of democracy: where does the UK stand?

Parliamentary websites can help people engage with elected representatives and the democratic process. Devin Joshi and Erica Rosenfield have been comparing the websites of legislatures across the world. Here, they share their findings on how the UK Parliament compares to its international counterparts, finding it an excellent model worthy of being emulated elsewhere, with some room for further improvement.

Parliaments use social media mainly as a reporting tool rather than for public engagement

The UK Parliament and its counterparts across the globe are increasingly connecting with citizens through social media. Cristina Leston-Bandeira gives an overview of a new study into the Twitter and Facebook strategies of national parliaments. She finds that in the UK, 80% of Parliament’s social media postings tend to be used to report parliamentary activity rather than to carry out genuine engagement, although the Scottish Parliament is much more deliberative.

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