Citizen 2.0

Online mobilization against pension reform

"We became modern. No need to make endless meetings to get organized, we all have mobile phones and e-mails, and Facebook friends!". Inspired by the accounts of a French union activist the website lemonde.fr published an interesting article on "the blockades of high schools and refineries that are also organized on the Net".

For the youth, "everything goes through Facebook now. Some leaders are creating a group on the site by setting a time and place of appointment, then invite all their friends to join in. Within a few hours, everybody knows about it". A group of students from Ile-et-Vilaine (Brittany), who had launched a movement in 2009 against the high school reform, keep their 2,000 members informed and put about dozens of photos from the demonstrations.

The winners of the e-Democracy Awards 2010

After the auditions for the e-Democracy Awards held in the city hall of Issy-les-Moulineaux and broadcast live on the internet, the winners were announced at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on October 14.

In the French category the award went to Jean-Paul Delevoye, Ombudsman of the Republic, in the European category to Xavier Crouan, Director of Information and Digital Innovation of Rennes Metropolis, France, and the International Award went to Australian Senator Kate Lundy. Last but not least, the People’s Choice Award was given to Ralph Benko, author of “The Websters’ dictionary”.

The jury members were able to vote after each audition via an electronic voting system based on three criteria ranked from 1 to 10: the originality of the system presented, its transferability and the estimated impact on the citizen engagement in the public life. The total score allowed to determine the winners in all three categories: International, European and French.

Whare are the best e-practices to win an election?

18 months ahead of the presidential election, French political parties are starting to get ready, preparing their campaign strategies. The Internet will obviously be an integrated part of the candidates’ strategies. It remains to be seen whether the digital strategy will be at the heart of their campaigns or not. Bearing in mind that the young people voting for the first time will be the first voters of the Net Generation (also known as Generation Y), we should expect to live exciting moments.

But what if we took a leaf out of what’s happening around us? The British have just experienced an election campaign with an unexpected result (a Centrist/Conservative coalition government) whereas the Americans are getting ready to vote in midterm elections beginning of November.

During the World eGov Forum, Phil Noble, Director of PoliticsOnline, will bring together a group of British and American specialists to present the latest examples of election campaigns. The session will take place on October 13th at Cisco Systems Headquarters in Issy-les-Moulineaux.

The list of the jury of the e-Democracy Awards 2010 is published

The auditions of the finalists for the e-Democracy Awards 2010 will take place on Thursday October 14, in the Multimedia Room of the City Hall of Issy-les-Moulineaux (Paris, France).

Organized within the framework of the World e-Gov Forum 2010, the e-Democracy Awards aim to promote and reward the initiatives which help to change the democratic practices thanks to digital technologies. The selection process, currently underway, is organized by our partners: PoliticsOnline at the international level, Politech Institute at the European level and Blog Territorial at the national level.

French presidential election in 2012: new vibes for the political Web?

French people noticed that the Summer schools organized by their political parties took place against the background of the preparations for the presidential election of 2012. The Web strategies were of course part of these preparations.

New websites will be launched in the following months by the Communist Party, the centrist MoDem and the conservative UMP (namely its own social network), mobile applications for the Socialists, video site for Europe Ecologie etc., all this using mostly militant tools.

A website to keep track of one’s political opponents

It is called the "Accountability Project" and its website has just been launched by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to fight "against misinformation, lies and double-speak". The idea is simple: citizens can document Republican candidates and their claims and public statements at local events, as well as their campaign tactics. They are encouraged to film with anything that can record video - from a cell phone to a video camera - what candidates say at public events, and then submit the videos to the DNC-run site. In playing a complete transparency everyday citizens can see what their Republican candidates for office are saying and candidates themselves will see that there’s a cost to their dishonest statements.

The French Data Protection authority takes an interest in political communication

With the advent of new communication technologies, CNIL (the French Data Protection Authority) will update its recommendation passed in 2006 on political communication. According to CNIL, the last French election campaigns and especially the American ones have used innovative political communication practices relying on the development of ICT. In 2006, at the dawn of presidential and legislative elections, the French authority for privacy and personal data protection had outlined a certain number of practices, such as the management of internal data of political parties (which, according to article 8 of the Data Protection Act of January 6, 1978, don’t need to be declared and don’t require the common agreement of the party members), the organization of sponsorships and political communication operations : forbidding the use of local administrations files and local community files, use of the electoral rolls and commercial files...

Digital economy rankings 2010: Beyond e-readiness

This year begins the second decade of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual benchmarking study of countries’ digital development, previously known as the “e-readiness rankings”. Given the prevalence of Internet-connected consumers, businesses and governments, and the indispensable role that digital communications and services now play in most of the world’s economies, we believe that the countries in our study have achieved, to one degree or another, a state of e-readiness. The study’s new title, the “digital economy rankings”, captures the challenge of maximising the use of information and communications technology (ICT) that countries face in the years ahead.

Does Internet deepen the civic divide?

In a very interesting article published by the French newspaper "Le Monde" on June 22nd, political scientist Thierry Vedel asserts that Internet deepens the civic divide, strengthening the expertise of those who already take interest in the political life while others would content themselves with the television as main source of information. Based on a study led in December 2009 by CEVIPOF (Centre for Political Research at Sciences Po in Paris), within the framework of the European project Mediapolis, Vedel explains that 48 percent of the respondents chose television as their main source of information about politics while 21 percent opted for the radio. Nevertheless, the study proves that the importance of television decreased over the years while that of the Internet increased.

Call for nomination for the 10 Who Are Changing the World of Politics & the Internet

PoliticsOnline and the World eDemocracy Forum are proud to open the call for nominations of the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics. For the eleventh year in a row, PoliticsOnline subscribers and visitors from around the world will help select the top 10 individuals, organizations and companies having the greatest impact on the way the Internet is changing politics.

Submit your nominations now

The winners will be invited as honored guests to the 11th World eDemocracy Forum October 13-15, 2010, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, (Paris, France), where they'll take part in an awards ceremony and other special programs throughout the two-day forum.