Jaime Galvis, John Güssefeld, Charlotte Carnehl, Lilian Krause, Marie-Christine Hoehne
Under the motto "citizen questions - answer politician" was created in 2004 in the wake of the referendum on a new electoral law for the Hamburg abgeordnetenwatch.de first volunteer initiative. The aim was to overcome with the aid of a conversational interface attributes the gap between voters and elected representatives. All 121 deputies citizenship were listed with the most important information on their person, a photo and a contact address.
wake of its success, the platform 2006 to the Bundestag and 2008 extended to the European Parliament. Even local politicians from the district meetings in seven districts may be asked online. In addition to the vote and information about the outside activities and income of members of parliament can be done in abgeordnetenwatch.de one thing: ask questions. It is
abgeordnetenwatch.de a registered non-partisan association and institutionally independent. The public dialogue is to promote and ensure that political decisions are made transparent. Politicians should be closer to the citizens and their problems and needs. Virtually abgeordnetenwatch.de
works as follows: Each member has or Candidates a profile page. The questioner is his name and his e-mail address and asks its question. A team of presenters examined the question using a moderation of conduct drawn up by the Trustees, and unlock it. The questions and answers are then publicly for all to see. The questions will be forwarded directly to the deputies.
The Board of Trustees, which consists of eleven members include the moment in Dr. Jürgen Kühling, twelve years Judge of the Federal Constitutional Court, Prof. Dr. Hans J. Kleinsteuber, a professor of political science and journalism at the University of Hamburg, and Dr. Manfred Brandt, member of the Hamburg State Board of More Democracy to. The Board of Trustees established Moderation Code prohibits in particular the activation of contributions, in which racist, sexist, abusive, inhumane or private questions.
The platform uses a mixed funding. First, it draws its funds from donations and funding contributions from Parlamentwatch.de, own support groups, online advertising and a project cost-sharing of candidates. The non-profit partner Bonventure GmbH provides the necessary risk capital.
Who responds and how to respond?
Looking at the response of various Members are clear differences visible. Where a Be very detailed and comprehensive answers and hide behind other Members to delegate them to standard formulations or colleagues asked questions. In the "signature" they are different: in some cases, the name used is the deputies, in another sign the "team". In general, one can assume that the members write their answers themselves. The Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel
not used at all abgeordnetenwatch.de. It has its own platform - direktzurkanzlerin.de.
Direkzu
The direktzu GmbH was founded in late 2006 by students at the FU Berlin. Meanwhile, there is a 20-member Team behind this company. It is supported financially by the European Union, the Free University of Berlin and the Brandenburg University. It is unclear how much money the company occupies itself and demands for their services. On the home page of the website will be asked to ask about the 'special pricing options for policy makers and civil society. " According to information provided direktzu
is a "provider of software-based solutions that provide by modern many-to-one communications for efficiency and relevance in direct exchange between large groups and exposed addressees. There are two types of communication software: direktzu corporate (direktzu Intern), which is designed for companies and should make for more efficient communication between employees and management, and direktzu politics (direktzu external) which aims at a better citizen and crisis communications, and customer feedback platforms.
Direktzu politics is mostly used by individual politicians. So far, the Angela Merkel, Ilse Aigner, Dirk Niebel, Matthias Platzeck, Wolfgang Böhmer, Holger Rupprecht, Harald Wolf, Markus Lewe, Jürgen Nimptsch and Christian Ude. The presence of Norbert Lammert and Horst Seehofer was adjusted because of "low demand" or "at the request of the Bavarian State Chancellery, for strategic reasons."
Since 22.9.2010 there is also the project page dirketzustuttgart21.de "there is communication on what not to individual politicians, but with the project partners. This is an example of crisis communication.
direktzu The softwares are also in English (straightto) and was used in the last election campaign in the USA.
The press has largely taken a positive stance on direktzu. So many terms like "Internet democracy", "digital populism" or "promotion of social communication." However, there is the accusation that it was at the side only a "complaints mailbox", but this does nothing.
Dirketzurkanzlerin.de
This site was founded in October 2006. It is very simple. Asker can register and post a message as text, with audio or video. Voting on the contributions and rated three are sent once a week to respond to the Government Press Office. The answers are (especially compared to some examples on abgeordnetenwatch.de) in some detail and will specifically address the issue. The questions and answers to the public and can be filtered by various criteria.
Direktzurkanzlerin.de has been relatively successful and had been in the first week 30,000 visits.
A look to the UK: mysociety.org
Mysociety.org is an example of various e-democracy projects there since 2003. On the homepage of many of their own projects will be seeking for all citizens to improve and simplify everyday life.
examples include the home pages They Work For You, which provides information on members, and Fix My Street, on the citizens pictures of broken roads, etc. can upload lanterns which are then forwarded to local officials.
Write to Them
Write to Them follows a very simple Principle: The citizens can enter their zip code and then see which representative represents. You can write a message that is forwarded to them. Thus, a personal contact between citizens and representative can be produced. The questions and answers are not published.
Hear From Your MP
In Hear From Your MP to the citizens by name, e-mail login address and ZIP code. If enough people register in his constituency, the MP receives a message informing you how many people are interested in his work. Can the MP to one, everyone gets notified Citizens of a newsletter by the MP to the current issues. Directly in this newsletter there is a link, so that citizens can respond. It is built up a kind of blog-on principle: the MP writes a statement, the subscriber can comment on it and it may give a call. This offer is used by nearly 137 000 British.
The problem with this is that many MPs do not participate. Many of them prefer soft on e-mails and Twitter services.
Abgeordnetenwatch.de, and direktzurkanzlerin Write to Them - A brief comparison
It has become clear that all three offers a better and easier communication between citizens and politicians want to establish. The former should participate more and get the latter a better look of what the people really interested. However, there are some differences:
Abgeordnetenwatch.de sees itself as a platform of "collective memory of voters." Where a question to the moderation of conduct, it is forwarded directly to the deputies. All question and (non) answers will be published. In
direktzurkanzlerin it looks different. There are only three issues a week forwarded to the Federal Press Office. These three questions are then the ones of interest to the majority of users. Issues with smaller concerns are therefore not to direktzurkanzlerin answered.
Write to Them follows a completely different principle than the other two platforms: This is not the goal, a large database of questions and answers to build, but the questions are not published. Write to Them acts more as a mediator between citizen and representative, by producing a personal e-mail.
0 comments:
Post a Comment