Public participation, a process involving citizen or stakeholder engagement in decision-making, has gained increasing emphasis in recent years. Interestingly, the emergence of the concepts of “e-governance”, “e-government” and “e-democracy” reflects the increasing connection of online tools such as the Internet with the concept of public participation (Freeman, 2013). Does governmental regulation of the Internet necessarily not promote public participation then? I think not; to my mind, there are two different kinds of regulation – “positive” and “negative” regulation, implemented with the purpose of promoting and restricting participation respectively. Whether these regulations indeed do promote or restrict effective public participation (which is to be determined by the impact of public participation on business, government and society) still remain to be seen.
Positive internet regulation commonly come in the form of online public participation platforms; one example is the U.S. Federal government website “regulations.gov”, a portal allowing the public to participate in the rulemaking processes of some Federal government agencies. Such regulation purports to provide increased access to governmental information, greater platforms to facilitate public dialogue, reduced cost of participation and improved ease of organizing support or opposition to decisions; thereby empowering both the individual and groups within the society and promotes greater public participation (Leighninger, 2011). Yet it has been said that the theory of public participation does not accord with its practice and may not be truly useful in its application (Noveck, 2004-2005). The highly divergent nature of comments in terms of quality and quantity makes it ...
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The author is this article is Kalev Leetaru, he is known as an American internet entrepreneur and academic. He is also a contributor to Foreign Policy, where he discusses current political events worldwide. He was appointed adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown university which is ranked #6 internationally and is an extremely well respected university in Washington DC.
From the variety of hot topics that are covered by news, we can see that influence of the public opinion from the Internet cannot not be underestimated, but the scholars have a different view against ‘Could the Internet be the public sphere’. In this essay, commenting function in Yahoo News articles will be used to evaluate its performance of opinions expressions with Habermas’ normative standard for public sphere, and to discuss the limitation of Habermas’ deliberative approach of the public sphere within the Internet.
Riley, M. C. (2013). Anarchy, State, or Utopia?: Checks and Balances in Internet Governance. IEEE Internet Computing, 17(3), 10-17. doi:10.1109/MIC.2013.24
There are over 2,405,518,376 internet users on a global scale. More than 50% of the world have a form of Internet censorship, and of those countries China, North Korea, Iran, and Vietnam heavily restrict its citizens. This recent topic has reached new heights in the US with the growing number of access to internet. More and more people are debating whether the internet should be censored. Internet censorship is the control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the internet. This would affect everyone and me. I specifically use the internet to read about controversial view and other information that gets ignored by the media or isn’t circulated anymore. Most of these sites would fall in the black list of censoring. A small percentage of users post conspicuous posts, graphic material, and infringing copyright links. Although inappropriate it shouldn’t demand internet censorship, because it goes against the individual rights of the people. Freedom of speech and press will be restricted by the government. To a point where people would be scared to express themselves, or spread information for they might be punished. Even if their opinion is erroneous and maleficent, it’s still that person’s opinion and he’s entitled to it. Same can be said for the common good everyone should be able to voice their opinions without censorship anywhere. Everyone should also have the access to any information on the internet. If anyone is offended by what is said on the internet, then they can remember to not visit the webpage next time and hold themselves accountable. This paper will examine the issue of internet censorship constituting a violation to the American people individual rights, common good, and the constitution.
The Golden Shield Project, colloquially known as the “Great Firewall of China”, is the Chinese government’s Internet surveillance and censorship campaign. OpenNet Initiative, a professional collaboration between the Cambridge Security Program, University of Toronto Citizen Lab, and Harvard Law School, declared the Firewall to be the most sophisticated content-filtering intranet regime in the world (Punyakumpol). The Ministry of Public Security, China’s principle security authority, initiated, developed, and operates the intranet project, policing both online and by human force. However, the issue is more complex, because “the Chinese economy benefits tremendously from the Internet, but the Internet, in turn, is interfering with its political stability” (Punyakumpol). The political motivations behind this severe censorship are a driving factor of the project’s resilience, and therefore has become one of the most controversial human rights topics in recent years.
BRANDON, JOHN. "When Cybercriminals ATTACK." Computerworld 45.21 (2011): 26. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 6 Feb. 2014
...t those that seek to censor some of the information found on the internet. Nunziato (2009) concludes that in order to fulfill the Internet’s promise of being “the most participatory market-place of mass speech that this country-and indeed the world- has seen,” the companies that serve as gatekeepers for free expression need to be regulated to ensure that they fairly administer any censorship such that it “does not detract from the free speech values that are necessary to facilitate the public discussion and informed deliberation that democratic government presupposes and the First Amendment requires”.
Watts, Jonathan. "China's Secret Internet Police Target Critics with Web of Propaganda | Technology | The Guardian." The Guardian. 14 June 2005. Web. 21 Feb. 2011.
The Internet distributes more information than any other medium in the world. There are several problems that have emerged along with the Internet, “As soon as the public began to use the Internet, people began to express concern about its use” (Clark 1). Some groups feel that the World Wide Web is dangerous because of it’s open accessibility, whereas other groups see that the Internet is something that can be used to share knowledge globally. The Internet should not be censored because censorship would restrict Americans’ first amendment rights; regulations have been tried and have failed in the past, and there are better methods of education and protection than censorship.
China is one of the strictest countries when it comes to dealing with foreign multinational corporations. Any international company willing to set up shop in China must comply with the strict laws of doing business in the country. More often than not, international companies doing business in China face a lot of obstacles due to differences in values they stand for. For instance, Google. Inc. China is a classic example of a multinational corporation that has struggled to conduct successful business in China.
Many public research on citizen participation confirm that participation leads to more participation even when citizens become doubtful about government. Citizen participation within an association, as part of a group, or in a community is likely to result in an embellish sense of efficiency, which will in turn, encourages further citizen participation. Most predominant systems of government, citizens are allowed to participate only by voting once in several years. This in one way or the other separate politicians from their electors. Lack of ability and corrupt politicians are not rare and vital decisions are made behind the scenes from the knowledge of most citizens. In developed and developing countries citizen’s participation by introducing citizens' rights to initiate laws, to call referenda and to be consulted on (local and minor) decisions has gone some small way to compensate for these deficits of "representative" democracy. The ideal that all members of a community or country should be able to participate in reaching common decisions has often been dismissed as impractical, especially where large populations are concerned and also for other reasons. It is practically impossible to conceive a town meeting for a town like Moscow or even for Accra. However, in this modern world with modern technologies it is possible for all citizens to inform and educate themselves about public issues and to vote or decide on them electronically. However, one vital problem of this assessment is that most people are technology illiterate and therefore finds it difficult use such technology. In this era of modern Information and Communication Technology (Internet), access to information has vastly increased as well as the speed and volume of communication. The Internet and the World Wide Web contain much political information and
This paper is going to explore the topic of e-democracy. As our society becomes more enthralled with technology and communication via the Web, it is important to consider what kind of methods and tools we use to communicate about issues that vastly affect everyone. Although some believe that there are positives and negatives regarding e-democracy, every subject is going to have pros and cons. Throughout this paper, I am going to explore what the “mainstream” media has written about e-democracy and both the positives and negatives of it as well. By using previous research, I would like to express why I think e-democracy’s positives outweigh the negatives and how society can benefit from such a technological breakthrough.
Most of the Internet regulation is imposed by the Government in an effort to protect the best interest of the general public and is concerned with some form of censorship.
J. Siddiqi & B. Akhgar, "A Framework for Increasing Participation in E-Government," The 2006 Int. Conf. E-business, Enterprise Inform. Syst., E-government & Outsourcing, 2006. [Online]. Available: http://ww1.ucmss.com/books/LFS/CSREA2006/EEE4487.pdf. [Accessed Mar. 31, 2011].
In true democracy, there is no doubt that voices will rise against the ideas for public participation. Over the past years, certain visible feature relating to public participation and the increase and there had been a rise on the decision making process where citizens get involved. The public participation in the policy process, to truly implement the principles of democracy of the public process should aim to be rational and fair to achieve effectiveness.