Proposal for the Use of Digital Mediation for Public Direct Participation during Electoral Periods

Abstract

This work of research and development seeks to present a proposal of digital mediation for direct public participation during electoral periods. The proposal includes a conceptual and functional model and the corresponding proof of concept –a web application named iLeger. In summary, this application supports collaborative interactions such as questions, answers, suggestions, ratings, comments and live debates, and was specifically designed to gather, in a single neutral deliberative and regulated space, the main stakeholders in an electoral campaign, fostering multidirectional communication (synchronous and asynchronous) and sharing between them. This chapter also includes the results obtained from the use of the iLeger platform in the electoral campaign for the Portuguese Parliamentary and Local Elections held in 2009, the 2010 election of the Head of the Portuguese Medical Association and the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections held in 2011 in Portugal. The developing effort was conducted taking into account an Agile strategy which is briefly reported in the development process.

Proposed solutions to citizen engagement in virtual environments of social participation: a systematic review

“…De Sousa and Gouveia (2012) used a Web application that seeks to bring together key stakeholders in an election, voters and candidates, into a central, regulated, and neutral website, promoting collaboration and multidirectional communication between them. Their purpose is to enable the voter not only to be an information consumer, but also to be able to intervene and produce information.…”