This article proposes a framework to study the impact of the Internet on parliaments from a legislative studies perspective. This area of study has been addressed only by an Internet studies perspective and, as a consequence, we still know little about the impact of the Internet on parliamentary activity. The framework proposed in this article integrates the 'offline' context of each parliament (institutional factors) in the analysis of the impact of the Internet, identifying different functions played by parliament (other than just representation) and shifting the focus to the institution of parliament, rather than MPs individually considered. This is complemented by a brief exploratory analysis of the impact of the Internet in four parliaments (British, European, Portuguese and Swedish) to illustrate some of the points made.

Abstract:T UK P F declining levels of trust, it has invested considerable time and resources to new activities focusing specifically on engagement: educational resources and cultural events among many others. This embodies a new role for parliament of increasing importance particularly in the context of the twentyfirst century parliament. This article analyses the aims of public engagement and its consequences for representation. We explore the potential representative role of public engagement, identifying key changes that have affected the relationship between public and parliament. We utilise evidence from documentary analysis and elite in-depth interviews with parliamentary officials to show that public engagement planning aims to develop amongst the public a sense of connectivity that relies on more collective and symbolic forms of representation, which seek to present the institution detached from its actors and politics. We utilise constructivist representation theories to support our analysis.

Political disengagement and declining trust have become main areas of concern for parliaments in Europe, leading to a considerable reinforcement of public engagement activities. The European Parliament is a prime example of an institution where the need to strengthen the link with citizens became a key priority, in particular following the Lisbon Treaty's reinforcement of the parliament's powers and visibility. This article analyses the decision-making processes this Parliament has put in place to meet the public engagement agenda. It is mainly based on elite interviews with officials and representatives. We show that political will was key to move forward the public engagement agenda, and that new media has become a core element of this strategy.Key words: public engagement; trust in parliament; European Parliament; internet and parliament.Faced with rising levels of p o l i t i c a l d i s e n g a g e m e n t a n d a c c u s a t i o n s o f l a c k o f t r a n s p a r e n c y , parliaments across Europe have considerably reinforced their public engagement activities over the last decade, with many embedding this dimension into their overall strategies. As parliamentary public engagement has grown, the literature has started to analyse the effectiveness of the outputs produced by parliaments, such as petition systems or simply parliamentary websites. Namely, studies have assessed over a decade now the effectiveness of parliamentary websites as a public engagement tool, in the possibilities of information and interaction these offer (Norris, 2001;Trechsel et al, 2003;Setälä and Grönlund, 2006; Global Centre for ICT, 2008Griffith and Leston-Bandeira, 2012; J os hi and Ros enf i el d, 2013), with many more s t udi es f ocus i ng on t he effectiveness of individual MPs' websites (e.g. Zittel, 2003;Ward and Lusoli, 2005;Chappelet and Kilchenmann, 2006;Vicente-Merino, 2007;Francoli and Ward, 2008;Jackson, 2008). In this article we propose instead to analyse the processes in place that lead to the decisions behind public engagement outputs, such as a parliamentary website. Adopting the European Parliament as our case study, we explore the processes in place to support the development of public engagement and its inherent challenges. Whilst some of the literature has considered the structures in place to move forward the engagement agenda (Kelso, 2007;Leston-Bandeira, 2007b;De Rosa, 2009;Clark and Wilford, 2012; Walker 2012), we still need to understand better what processes lead to the development of public engagement, to ascertain who takes decisions regarding the format of public 2 engagement, the inherent challenges and what this can teach us in terms of developing effective public engagement. It is important in particular to identify the challenges in place to be able to set realistic expectations; but also to identify enablers of effective implementation of public engagement.Focusing on the output of a parliamentary website, we enquire into the decision-making process in place behind the decisions made ...

This article explores how parliaments are using social media, assessing the role this plays in public engagement. Relatively latecomers to the world of social media, parliaments have made considerable strides in the last couple of years with many now joining a platform that is still perceived as an unknown and vulnerable space for formal political institutions. We show that parliaments are using social media mainly to report parliamentary business, interacting with citizens only on the margins. We consider the extent to which this approach constitutes public engagement and explore the differences in strategy between parliamentary institutions. In our analysis we consider in particular the specificity of parliamentary institutions in their ability to use this type of tools effectively. We also reflect on the limitations and challenges these tools raise to an institution such as a parliament, namely in terms of engaging with the public. Our study includes an overview of social media accounts in parliaments across the world, being mainly based on a content analysis of a sample of Facebook and Twitter feeds from five European parliaments, supported by information drawn from elite interviews with senior parliamentary officials and representatives.

Recent theoretical reconceptualisations of political representation and contemporary empirical analyses of parliamentary representation have largely neglected the representation of parliaments as institutions. As a consequence, relatively little attention has been focused upon what is being communicated to citizens about parliaments and upon the nature of the parliamentary institutions that citizens are expected to engage with. This is the neglected institutional dimension of parliamentary representation. Using interview data from 39 key actors in the Scottish, Westminster and European Parliaments, we analyse who act as 'claim-makers' on behalf of parliaments, the nature of these claims in different political contexts, and the 'symbolic intent' and claims associated with the architectural design of parliamentary buildings. We identify a basic paradox of institutional representation in that those who 'speak for' (most loudly and most persistently) and 'act for' parliaments as institutions are not primarily elected representatives but rather non-elected officials.

The U.K. Parliament introduced an e‐petitions system in 2015 with the aim of significantly enhancing its relationship with the public. We explore whether this aim is being met through the analysis of Twitter data from conversations on e‐petitions debated in parliament. We use natural language processing, machine learning, and social network analysis of Twitter data to explore what it shows about the extent of people's engagement, the contents of Twitter e‐petition conversations, who is taking part, and how they interact. Our findings provide interesting insights into how people perceive the e‐petition procedures in terms of fairness and responsiveness, suggesting that petition parliamentary debates should be more inclusive of the original petitions’ aims. The results also point to homophily tendencies present in the Twitter e‐petition discussions.

ICT-based methods of communication, and especially new forms of social media, offer parliaments the opportunity to communicate with citizens and engage them in the political process more effectively. This is important in a context of declining levels of trust in parliaments where new media is often identified as a tool to address poor engagement with politics. However, the use of ICT poses significant challenges to parliaments, many of which do not readily adopt new technology. As a result, most parliaments have acquired some of the forms and elements of ICT and the new social media, but most have not yet been able to use them in a highly successful manner or incorporate them effectively into their work. Sound management, adequate staff and funding are clearly important. However, cultural and institutional factors, along with how a parliament uses technology, can have as significant an effect as management procedures and financial resources.

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