Connecting democracy : online consultation and the flow of political communication / edited by Stephen Coleman and Peter M. Shane.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Online consultation and political communication in the era of Obama: an introduction / Peter M. Shane -- Democracy, distance, and reach: the new media landscape / Stephen Coleman and Vincent Price -- Web 2.0: new challenges for the study of e-democracy in an era of informational exuberance / Andrew Chadwick -- Online consultations in local government: what works, when, and why? / Joachim Åström and Åke Grönlund -- Neighborhood information systems as intermediaries in democratic communities / Steven J. Balla and Sungsoo Hwang -- Playing politics: the experience of e-participation / Vincent Price -- The participatory journey in online consultations / Scott Wright -- Democratic consultation and the e-citizen / Stephen Coleman, Rachel Gibson, and Agnes I. Schneeberger -- The technological dimension of deliberation: a comparison between online and offline participation / Laurence Monnoyer-Smith -- The third sector as e-democratic intermediaries / Scott Wright and Stephen Coleman -- A Survey of federal agency rulemakers' attitudes about e-rulemaking / Jeffrey S. Lubbers -- The Internet and the Madisonian cycle: possibilities and prospects for consultative representation / David Lazer, Michael Neblo, and Kevin Esterling -- Legal frameworks and institutional contexts for public consultation regarding administrative action: the United States / Peter L. Strauss -- Legal frameworks and institutional contexts for public policy consultation regarding administrative action: the European Union / Polona Pičman Štefančič -- The legal environment for electronic democracy / Peter M. Shane and Polona Pičman Štefančič -- E-democracy, transnational organizations, and the challenge of new techno-intermediation / Oren Perez -- Making the e-citizen: a sociotechnical approach to democracy / Stephen Coleman.

From the publisher. The global explosion of online activity is steadily transforming the relationship between government and the public. The first wave of change, "e-government," enlisted the Internet to improve management and the delivery of services. More recently, "e-democracy" has aimed to enhance democracy itself using digital information and communication technology. One notable example of e-democratic practice is the government-sponsored (or government-authorized) online forum for public input on policymaking. This book investigates these "online consultations" and their effect on democratic practice in the United States and Europe, examining the potential of Internet-enabled policy forums to enrich democratic citizenship. The book first situates the online consultation phenomenon in a conceptual framework that takes into account the contemporary media environment and the flow of political communication; then offers a multifaceted look at the experience of online consultation participants in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France; and finally explores the legal architecture of U.S. and E.U. online consultation. As the contributors make clear, online consultations are not simply dialogues between citizens and government but constitute networked communications involving citizens, government, technicians, civil society organizations, and the media. The topics examined are especially relevant today, in light of the Obama administration's innovations in online citizen involvement.