Archive for the ‘Interview’ Category
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14. December 2009 – 19:34 by Eric Legale
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It is “a simple, friendly and easy to implement project”. In these words, Daniel Roleff, editor of the German portal politik-digital has introduced e-Participation.net, during the last eDemocracy Awards workshop. It is a joint initiative of the German website and the British Council, the British cultural agency in Germany to create an interactive database on projects and initiatives aimed at strengthening citizen participation in Germany and the United Kingdom.
If, today, the e-participation.it website identifies e-Democracy initiatives in Italy, the aim is to open this database to all European experiences.
To see the video
Posted in good practice, Interview, Uncategorized | No Comments »
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6. December 2009 – 13:37 by Eric Legale
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“Independent but not neutral” is the self definition of Pollitika.com. Launched in 2006 by Marko Rakar, known for his political notes on his blog about the political situation of this south european country of 4.5 million inhabitants, Pollitika.com has become an inevitable website about politics. Three thousand bloggers are enrolled and contribute to the website. About 2.000 new articles are published every year for 150.000 visitors per month.
Mark Rakar is a passionate man. During the visit of the French National Assembly, proposed to the participants of the last World eDemocracy Forum, he enjoyed every moment and every picture. Curious by nature, quoting the American strategist Joe Trippi and convinced that an electoral campaign is “too serious matter to be left to political parties”, it was not a surprise that he is one of Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics. During the eDemocracy Awards workshop, last october, he explained how Pollitika.com strengthened democracy in Croatie.
Posted in Interview, News, Visions | 3 Comments »
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25. November 2009 – 11:37 by Eric Legale
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World e-Democracy Forum Award 2009, EuProfiler.eu help the european citizens to access to a detailed mapping of some 300 political parties. Through multiple-choice questions, an algorithm evaluates the sensitivity and determine the political affiliation of Internet users. It has been used during the last European Parliament elections in June, with around 2.5 million unique visitors who used it.
At the e-Democracy awards workshop, professors Alexander Trechsel and Fabian Breuer explained their motivations.
A presentation to see in video: [To watch the video]
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16. November 2009 – 10:41 by Eric Legale
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Caitlin Morrissey, PoliticsOnline.com editor, explains in this video how the web’s oldest political Internet company selects during the last ten years the “10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics”. This year, the International e-Democracy Award was given by Phil Noble, founder of PoliticsOnline, to Peter Greenberger, head of the Google division in charge of political advertising. The online tools that Google offers (YouTube, Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Ads) were heavily used over the course of the recent American presidential campaign. Democratic candidate Barack Obama spent 7.5 million dollars integrating these tools into his campaign strategy. Peter Greenberger informs and educates policy makers and administration officials regarding the use of these tools in order to make the political process more accessible to ordinary citizens.
According PoliticsOnline, Peter Greenberger and his team have played a key role in enhancing transparency and democracy in the United States, which significantly change the worldview of politics among citizens.
A presentation to see in video: [To watch the video]
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8. November 2009 – 19:43 by Eric Legale
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“The Alliance & Progressive Socialist Democrats in the European Parliament website’s audience has doubled in one year, because of Twitter” said Tony Robinson, head of the Internet Unit for this Parliamentary Group in Strasbourg during the European e-Democracy Award presentation for the 2009, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, last October 23.
A distinction awarded by Politech Institute and IP label for the variety of web 2.0 tools used and of the content of a website whose aim is to increase citizen participation in the European debate.
A presentation to see in video: [To watch the video]
Posted in good practice, Interview, News, Twitter | No Comments »
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26. August 2009 – 13:25 by Hans Hagedorn
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Expectation were high: The 2009 German Federal Election should be a real “online election” with big online campaigns, inspired by the success the Obama-campaign had had in 2008.
And indeed politicians like German chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) or the counter-candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) do have their profiles in well-known social networks: You can find their profiles on Facebook as well as on the German social networks StudiVZ and MeinVZ. Candidates´ logos and websites resemble Barrack Obamas Websites with big pictures, videos and links to other online activities (see Merkel, Steinmeier).
But does it transferring the American campaign to the German Federal Elections really work?
Micah Sifri says: No!
Sifri founded the web-portal Personal Democracy and writes for the weblog Techpresident.com. In an interview with the German web-format “Elektrischer Reporter” he says that the main problem is that the German elections are status-quo-elections rather than change elections: “In a status-quo-election, where the candidates are not exciting, the internet won´t change that.” Only when there is a desire and a real chance for political change, volunteers who can exhaust the possibilities of the internet get more important.
According to Sifrin, Obama had understood the power of these volunteers and of voter generated activity and did not concentrate on one specific tool or one specific network, but on a combination of them all. (You can view the video-interview here: http://www.elektrischer-reporter.de/rohstoff/video/152/ . The audio is in English.)
Nevertheless some projects by civilians give an anticipation how a voter-driven activities online could look like in Germany. One of them is website “wechsel-waehler.de” (Wechselwähler meaning swing voter). Six swing voters moved in a shared flat where they will live until the elections. They blog about their political viewpoints and about recent news – and on each Sunday they have breakfast with a political guest. Videos of these Sunday roundtables can also be viewed on the website.
Simone Gerdesmeier, Zebralog Berlin
Posted in Interview, Trends, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
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13. August 2009 – 08:42 by pol-di.net e.V / politik-digital.de
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For the upcoming German Federal election 2009, politik-digital.de, in a joint project with pro-bono TV production, published a video clip which shows various celebrities telling not to vote. You can watch the clip here (sorry, I couldn’t embed the clip):
Geh nicht hin!
For those of you who are non-German speakers, find an english article about the project on DW-World.de. This article comes along with a radio interview including a statement by politik-digital.de executive director Stefan Gehrke.
Posted in Interview, members, News | No Comments »
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27. May 2009 – 11:57 by Roberto Zarro
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The project is promoted by the Emilia-Romagna Region in the framework of its Telematic Plan, and realized by the Municipalities of Bologna, Ferrara, Modena, Piacenza and Reggio Emilia. The aim of the project is to understand, both with studies and analysis, both with tests, how much and in which ways institutions can integrate web 2.0 tools in their official websites and portals. Leda Guidi, manager of the Bologna’s institutional civic net Iperbole and Power’s project manager, highlights goals, plans and early results of the project. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Interview, members, Projects, Visions | No Comments »
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5. May 2009 – 10:33 by E-Voting.CC
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Finally our newest project has been released and delivered to our readers: The biannual free special 
interest magazine “Modern Democracy” by E-Voting.CC.
As I have announced in an earlier entry we issued the first edition of our magazine dealing with selected topics in the field of E-Democracy and it’s newest developments. The magazine is distributed all around the world.
Before I give you a quick overview of the contents, I want to thank all of you who have mailed us the registration coupons. The responses were overwhelmingly positive and gave us the affirmation that such a magazine is needed and wanted. Thank you for all the positive feedback!
The first article deals with the upcoming student union elections in Austria. This event will mark the entry of Austria into the list of countries with legally binding electronic elections. Students will be able to cast their vote via Internet from May 18th until May 22nd – one week before the paper election. The results will be counted after the last polling stations are closed.
The intention behind this project is to give every student an easy and uncomplicated way of participating in these biannual elections and to innovate the Austrian voting procedures.
Read the rest of this entry »
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7. April 2009 – 18:52 by christophdowe-politik-digital.de
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For the politik-digital.de video-feature “In Passing”, the Federal Minister of the Interior Dr. Wolfgang Schäuble reveals that he is filing his tax return online, explains the role of the state in the world of digital communication and hopes that more citizens will participate in democracy.
politik-digital.de: How do you use the internet privately?
Wolfgang Schäuble: Once in a while I take a look at ard.de [one of the two main public TV stations] or SpiegelOnline.de. Besides, I use modern communication technology. I don’t use email a lot myself, but sometimes together with my children. Apart from that, my office is helping me. I conduct my banking activities online. I also file my tax return on the internet… What else? I try not to spend too much of my time only with the modern communication technologies.
How do you use the internet for the election campaign?
Schäuble: Of course, for political communication, we need to use those ways of publicity that are being used today. And modern communication technology is constantly becoming more important. We also use modern information technology a lot for administration purposes. As the Minister of Interior I am responsible for that. For this reason, I was at the CeBIT last week, where we always have a section for Civil Service. We have advanced a lot of things, like the standardized telephone number for Civil Service. We are working on a citizen’s portal, De-Mail – safe email. By the way, the much criticized law „Safety in information technology“ is also an element. As the state, it is our role, and my responsibility, to guarantee the safety of the web, that also means the reliability of communication. Nowadays, when you want to send a contract by email, you still have to send it also by paper mail. With De-Mail you won’t have to do that any longer. So we deal a lot with this. At the same time we also have to see to that communication is safe, especially with issues that are sensitive in terms of safety policy.
How much „e“ can democracy bear?
Schäuble: We will see. It will be sorted out in one way or another. At the moment I also hope that the new media will result in more people participating in democratic discussions and in democratic decision-making. In America, this seems to have been the case during the presidential election campaigns. But also in France, when Nicolas Sarkozy won against Ségolène Royal, this played an important role. I wish something similar will happen in Germany as well. However, every progress entails risks and opportunities. We have just seen this with innovative financial products. Similarly, modern information technology is not without risks, as we have seen with the issue of the increasing tendency to violence at the other end or at the beginning of our debate.
Do you feel hit by the allegation: Schäuble = Stasi [former GDR secret police] 2.0
Schäuble: Well, I took it rather ironically. You have to bear some jokes at your own expense. What I’d find bothering is, if more and more young people are misled to believe that our Order of Freedom has a similarity with the system of injustice that the Stasi represented. That is not funny anymore. And look, when the same people who now, after the massacre of Winnenden, say we should hand over all our guns to the police, or we should have entrance control in schools – when those people are saying at the same time we’d be living in a surveillance society, this is such a contradiction, that I hope that modern information technology will not lead to the loss of all sanity/rationality, but that we can keep a certain degree of temperance when we level criticism.
Posted in Interview, News | 1 Comment »
