{"title":"Qualitative Political Communication| To Implement or Not to Implement? Participatory Online Communication in Swiss Cities","authors":"U. Klinger, Stephan Rösli, Otfried Jarren","doi":"10.5167/UZH-116694","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Social media platforms and other digital interactive media hold great potential for political communication. This study explores perceptions about this potential and the motivations to adopt participatory tools and assesses both motivations and challenges that local administrations face in the process of technology adoption for political communication. Switzerland is a critical case for local communication, because, on the one hand, media structures, media usage patterns, political culture, and legal regulations make it likely to find high levels of participatory online communication. On the other hand, the formalized participation opportunities of direct democracy may undermine the potential of online participation. Our analysis, based on interviews and document analysis, addresses the implementation of participatory online communication from the theoretical perspectives of rational choice and neoinstitutionalism. We found diffuse rather than specific motivations, role conflicts, frictions between informal online participation and formal decision-making processes, and low demand and resonance from citizens to be important challenges to the implementation of online participation.","PeriodicalId":51388,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Communication","volume":"2 1","pages":"21"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2015-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Communication","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5167/UZH-116694","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Social media platforms and other digital interactive media hold great potential for political communication. This study explores perceptions about this potential and the motivations to adopt participatory tools and assesses both motivations and challenges that local administrations face in the process of technology adoption for political communication. Switzerland is a critical case for local communication, because, on the one hand, media structures, media usage patterns, political culture, and legal regulations make it likely to find high levels of participatory online communication. On the other hand, the formalized participation opportunities of direct democracy may undermine the potential of online participation. Our analysis, based on interviews and document analysis, addresses the implementation of participatory online communication from the theoretical perspectives of rational choice and neoinstitutionalism. We found diffuse rather than specific motivations, role conflicts, frictions between informal online participation and formal decision-making processes, and low demand and resonance from citizens to be important challenges to the implementation of online participation.
期刊介绍:
The International Journal of Communication is an online, multi-media, academic journal that adheres to the highest standards of peer review and engages established and emerging scholars from anywhere in the world. The International Journal of Communication is an interdisciplinary journal that, while centered in communication, is open and welcoming to contributions from the many disciplines and approaches that meet at the crossroads that is communication study. We are interested in scholarship that crosses disciplinary lines and speaks to readers from a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives. In other words, the International Journal of Communication will be a forum for scholars when they address the wider audiences of our many sub-fields and specialties, rather than the location for the narrower conversations more appropriately conducted within more specialized journals. USC Annenberg Press USC Annenberg Press is committed to excellence in communication scholarship, journalism, media research, and application. To advance this goal, we edit and publish prominent scholarly publications that are both innovative and influential, and that chart new courses in their respective fields of study. Annenberg Press is among the first to deliver journal content online free of charge, and devoted to the wide dissemination of its content. Annenberg Press continues to offer scholars and readers a forum that meets the highest standards of peer review and engages established and emerging scholars from anywhere in the world.