TY - BOOK ID - 78144790 TI - Politics and Web 2.0 AU - Serra, J Paulo AU - Gonçalves, Gisela PY - 2016 SN - 1622731093 9781622731091 9781622730995 1622730992 9781622731084 1622731085 PB - Wilmington, Delaware DB - UniCat KW - Political participation KW - Citizen participation KW - Community action KW - Community involvement KW - Community participation KW - Involvement, Community KW - Mass political behavior KW - Participation, Citizen KW - Participation, Community KW - Participation, Political KW - Political activity KW - Political behavior KW - Political rights KW - Social participation KW - Political activists KW - Politics, Practical KW - Technological innovations. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:78144790 AB - A point of departure for this book is the paradox between the seemingly limitless promise modern web technologies hold for enhanced political communication and their limited actual contribution. Empirical evidence indicates that neither citizens nor political parties are taking full advantage of online platforms to advance political participation. This is particularly evident when considering the websites of political parties, which have taken on two main functions: i) Disseminating information to citizens and journalists about the history, structure, programme and activities of the party; ii) Monitoring citizens' opinions in regard to different political questions and policy proposals that are under discussion. Despite the integration of websites into political parties' "permanent campaigns" (Blumenthal), television continues to be seen as the core medium in political communication and one-way and top-down communication strategies still prevail. In other words, it is still "business as usual". This book questions whether Web 2.0 could help enhance citizens' political participation. It offers a critical examination of the current state of the art from diverse perspectives, highlights persisting gaps in our knowledge and identifies a promising stream of further research. The ambition is to stimulate debate around the party-citizen "participation mismatch" and the role and place of modern web technologies in this setting. Each of the included chapters provide valuable explorations of the ways in which political parties motivate, make use of and are shaped by citizen participation in the Web 2.0 era. Diverse perspectives are employed, drawing examples from several European political systems and offering analytical insights at both the individual/micro level and at broader, macro or inter-societal systems level. Taken together, they offer a balanced and thought-provoking account of the political participation gap, its causes and consequences for political communication and democratic politics, as well as pointing the way to new forms of contemporary political participation. ER -