MP Transparency, Communication Links and Social Media: A Comparative Assessment of 184 Parliamentary Websites

Joshi, Devin K.; Rosenfield, Erica

doi:10.1080/13572334.2013.811940

Cited by 26 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…One important consideration is whether public engagement actually reflects parliament's work, or whether it develops as a parallel activity, both of which depend largely on how these activities are developed and the extent to which they are integrated with parliament's overall work. Whilst a wealth of studies have focused on the features of specific outputs of public engagement, such as new media and petitions (for example, Setälä and Grönlund, 2006;Dai and Norton, 2007;Carman, 2009Carman, , 2010Fox, 2009;Miller, 2009;Joshi and Rosenfield, 2013), we know little about the actual process of implementation of public engagement activities. And yet, the process of implementation can be as important for the suitability of a public engagement output, as it may shape its format and contents.…”

Section: The Implementation Of Public Engagement By Parliamentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pursuit of Legitimacy as a Key Driver for Public Engagement: The European Parliament Case

Leston‐Bandeira

2012

Parliamentary Affairs

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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 ...

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Section: The Implementation Of Public Engagement By Parliamentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pursuit of Legitimacy as a Key Driver for Public Engagement: The European Parliament Case

Leston‐Bandeira

2012

Parliamentary Affairs

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“…Moreover, the government has an awareness of the need to engage with citizens through social media and start experimenting and exploring the potential of social media (Omar et al, 2014). The high level of social media use found in this study is an indication that there is greater interest in interactive technology, moving beyond the status quo towards greater community involvement (Joshi & Rosenfield, 2013;Leston-Bandeira & Bender, 2013) and the potential for more strategic planning for more sustainable use. Local parliaments must therefore formulate and execute policies to determine why social media is adopted, how interaction is managed, and how resources, time and other conditions are managed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…Online petitions, websites, social media, and other online platforms have been used in recent years by governments and nongovernment actors to encourage citizen engagement and increase the database and overall legitimacy of democracy from the regulation-making process (Joshi & Rosenfield, 2013). The Parliament can take advantage of information crowdsourced, gathering citizen narratives, public consultations and expert knowledge by means of these various media.…”

Section: Parliament In the Digital Eramentioning

confidence: 99%

Performer, Reporter, and Marketer: Three Different Local Parliament Faces on Social Media

Marpaung

Santoso

2019

pgr

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Indonesian local parliaments have an image as a corrupt, closed, outdated, and unreachable institution in the public’s eyes. However, the parliaments have never tried to more actively developing policies which encourage active community participation. The recent adoption of social media by local parliaments seems to be a sign of the parliament’s willingness to encourage greater community contributions. However, little can be understood about the implications of these activities. Moreover, whether social media contributes significantly to community participation in local parliaments. The purpose of this study is to explore the use of social media by local parliaments. This study employed qualitative multiple case studies by conducting a content analysis on Facebook and Twitter in four local parliaments. This study found three faces of local parliaments on social media which are performers, reporters, and marketers. In general, there has been a willingness of local parliaments to become more transparent and participatory institutions. Nevertheless, the massive adoption of social media to promote more participatory democratic practices was conducted half-heartedly by the local parliaments. Practically, if local parliaments want to use social media to enchance their image, they must publish content that promotes openness such as online assembly and educative information.

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“…The development of digital mechanisms of engagement and interaction with the public has become a key priority for parliaments throughout the world, as many recent studies and reports have demonstrated (Global Centre for ICT 2012; Griffith & Leston-Bandeira 2012;Inter-Parliamentary Union 2012;Joshi & Rosenfield, 2013). According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the key objectives of the technology experiments currently being made by parliaments around the globe are to amplify the public's understanding about legislatures and to stimulate citizens' participation in the legislative process (IPU 2012, p.21).…”

Section: Parliamentary Websites As a Means To Fulfil New Media's mentioning

confidence: 99%

Information vs Engagement in parliamentary websites – a case study of Brazil and the UK

Bernardes¹,

Leston‐Bandeira

2016

Rev. Sociol. Polit.

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Parliamentary websites have become the main window of parliament to the outside world. More than a gimmick, they are an essential element in the promotion of a relationship between parliament and citizens. This paper develops a comparative analysis of the websites of the lower chambers of the Brazilian and the British parliaments, respectively the Chamber of Deputies and the House of Commons. We structure this analysis around three dimensions: 1) information about the institution; 2) information about parliamentary activity; and 3) tools to promote engagement with the public. The choice of two very different case studies enables us to consider more clearly the specific purposes of these parliamentary websites. We consider in particular if these parliaments' institutional differences affect their websites. The websites' analysis is complemented by semi-structured elite interviews with parliamentary staff who manage the services provided by these websites. Our analysis shows that both websites achieve much higher levels of complexity in the information area than in engagement. But it also shows that the Brazilian parliament website includes far more tools designed for public interaction than its UK counterpart. The indexes and interviews show that both institutions are highly committed to disseminating data and information to citizens. This is seen as a path towards achieving higher accountability and improving knowledge about parliamentary processes and, consequently, improving public image and levels of trust. Whilst there is a strong focus on the provision of information, there is still little evidence of enabling citizen participation in the legislative process. This is partly due to a tension between conceptions of representative democracy and those of participatory democracy. The articulation between these different types of democracy still has a long way to be resolved, although parliaments are slowly introducing participatory tools.A discussion has been made over a decade about definition and goals of E-Democracy, as well as actual possibilities of its implementation in diverse political systems. For Trechsel at el., increasing transparency, enhancing participation and improving quality of opinion formation are key objectives of these mechanisms, which are defined as "electronic means of communication that enable/empower citizens in their efforts to hold rulers/politicians accountable for their actions in the public realm" (Trechsel et al., 2003, p.10).In this article we compare the parliamentary websites of two case studies of institutions that have been particularly criticised the last few years, at the same time as being institutions that have actually introduced considerable reform: the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies and the UK House of Commons. Making use of

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MP Transparency, Communication Links and Social Media: A Comparative Assessment of 184 Parliamentary Websites

Cited by 26 publications

References 46 publications

The Pursuit of Legitimacy as a Key Driver for Public Engagement: The European Parliament Case

The Pursuit of Legitimacy as a Key Driver for Public Engagement: The European Parliament Case

Performer, Reporter, and Marketer: Three Different Local Parliament Faces on Social Media

Information vs Engagement in parliamentary websites – a case study of Brazil and the UK

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