E-participation in portuguese local governments : an exploratory research about emerging networks

Abstract

In this paper, we analyse the appearance of new forms of electronic participation in Portuguese local communities. Using some cases studies of e-participation in municipalities, we sustain a main argument: technical modernization doesn’t automatically develop citizen participation as a process of "reformation" (Neves & Felizes, 2007). For some social actors (technological producers, some "modern" politicians and sociologists), the process of “re-mediation” (the change on media) tends to be seen as a process of “reformation” (see Al Gore or M. Castells's concept of "info-exclusion"). Refusing this optimistic and linear view, we want to cross-examine the nature of the changes and of the combinations created by this new process of mediation on Local Governments and on the emerging networks. As Bolter and Grusin (1998: 2) sustain, "we want to begin to move towards an analysis of the cultural politics of the heterogeneous networks" created around these new technologies (see also Latour, 2005).