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Notes from the 4th Internet, Law and Politics Congress.Session VI Round Table Public opinion and participation on the internet: blogs and political parties Lourdes Muñoz, member of parliament, (PSC). PSC Secretary for Women’s Policy. Politicians and their participation in the Web 2.0 is but a part of a higher goal which is the development of the Information Society. The Web 2.0 provides new means for both citizens and institutions to have new channels to have their message sent, and their opinion heard. Indeed, there’s an increasing amount of readers and creators of blogs. And not only opinion, but participation. Some facts and figures about the penetration of blogs in the Spanish Congress Analysis and charts Data Related topics There is not a big difference between male and...

iCities is a Conference about Blogs, e-Government and Digital Participation.Here come my notes for session VII. Round Table: Networked Citizens. Whence do blogs go?Chairs: Pau Llop Víctor Ruiz Blogs come from the participative sites that flourished after the Slashdot experience, both technically and conceptually. Blogs have been an evolution of forums, but only at the usability level, but the general idea has not really changed that much. And like forums, they are of short reach. Only 6% of the population read political blogs… but we keep telling politicians that they have to be on the Net and have their own blog. Does this make any sense at all? When everyone has a blog (if that ever happens), will we at last make of them an influential tool? Fernando Tricas Some questions about...

These are the materials I’m using at the iCities: Primeras Jornadas sobre Blogs, e-Government y Participación Digital [First Conference on Blogs, e-Government and Digital Participation], for the opening speech, in which I take part on Friday 9th May 2008. Slides: Bibliography Castells, M. (2000). “Materials for an exploratory theory of the network society”. In British Journal of Sociology, Jan-Mar 2000, 51(1), 5-24. London: Routledge. Castells, M. (2004). “Informationalism, Networks, And The Network Society: A Theoretical Blueprint”. In Castells, M. (Ed.), The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Dutta, S., López-Claros, A. & Mia, I. (Eds.) (2006). Global Information Technology Report 2005-2006: Leveraging ICT for...

There is a constant buzz on the importance of blogs as both proxies for the freedom of speech in one country and also as the paradigmatic tool for citizen participation, activism, advocacy and so on. But, what’s the reality behind this (strong) statement? Is it just the mad dream of an enlightened digerati, or is there some truth in blogs politically empowering the citizenry? These are some of the questions behind iCities: Primeras Jornadas sobre Blogs, e-Government y Participación Digital [First Conference on Blogs, e-Government and Digital Participation]. Preparing the opening speech, which I impart on Friday 9th May 2008, I found some interesting things. Even if data have to be taken with maximum care and minimum work was performed on the statistical apparatus, it does seem that...

On April 3rd and 4th the Afghan Association of Blog Writers held their first blogging workshop.  (Read more about it on the Global Voices blog).   There are roughly 130 bloggers currently active in Afghanistan, which is impressive for a country where electricity shortages and scarcity of technology remain some of the biggest obstacles to blogging.   Although blogging has been quite popular here in the US, is still underutilized in much of the world.  Especially in societies where information does not travel freely, it provides people in the country with alternative points of view and those outside the country with access to information.  Workshops like this are fundamentally important in helping civil society become more active in political dialogue, even in countries where a...

The Canadian Institute of Distance Education Research, University of Athabasca, has invited me to impart a seminar in the framework of the CIDER Sessions about my digressions around The Personal Research Portal. The focus here will be on the educator, as I did in my article El portal personal del profesor: El claustro virtual o la red tras las aulas [The Personal Research Portal: The Virtual Faculty or the Net behind the Classroom]. The seminar will take place online — using Elluminate — on Friday 11th April 2008, at 17:00h GMT (in English). Relevant info Materials for the seminar (browse and download) Link to Presentation (click to log in 30min prior to the start of the presentation) CIDER Sessions home page Abstract Instructional technology has suffered, in our opinion, two...

One of the perks of keeping a blog is the people I meet along the way. I’ve established a number of contacts through my rambling on here, some of whom I’ve actually had the chance to meeting in real life. I had one such opportunity on Monday night when I finally met up with Jakob, [...]...

It has always been my intention to make my own design for the presentation of my blog. It’s only taken me more than a year, but I’ve finally gotten around to making my own “blog theme”. This involved me hacking round some CSS and PHP (I say hacking, because I went in without know much about [...]...

I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated – sorry, I’ve been super busy (how unusual), but I assure you it’s been worth the wait. Over the next couple of weeks I promise you an assortment of (some post-dated) delights – photos, stories, conference papers, videos, musings and monkeys (don’t forget the monkeys). In an [...]...