{"id":562,"date":"2017-06-27T09:20:03","date_gmt":"2017-06-27T08:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital-engagement\/?p=562"},"modified":"2019-05-03T10:44:43","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T09:44:43","slug":"rise-e-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/participation\/2017\/06\/27\/rise-e-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of E-Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I was recently a panelist for the \u2018<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Rise of E-Democracy<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019 event at the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencefestival.co.uk\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Edinburgh International Science Festival<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. I had the opportunity to sit alongside two very bright-minded and forward thinkers, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Leah Lockhart, The Democratic Society,<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0and <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Emma Mulqueeny, Young Rewired State<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The session posed a lot of challenging questions around governance, digital, ambition and what the role of technology is in the future of public participation and democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_569\" style=\"width: 778px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital-engagement\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2017\/06\/18834482_10108077244214660_972630085_n.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-569\" class=\"wp-image-569 size-full lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital-engagement\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2017\/06\/18834482_10108077244214660_972630085_n.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of panelists at Science Festival event\" width=\"768\" height=\"578\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/participation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2017\/06\/18834482_10108077244214660_972630085_n.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/participation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2017\/06\/18834482_10108077244214660_972630085_n-300x226.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/participation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2017\/06\/18834482_10108077244214660_972630085_n-680x512.jpg 680w, https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/participation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2017\/06\/18834482_10108077244214660_972630085_n-558x420.jpg 558w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 768px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 768\/578;\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-569\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(photo credit: @democrasophie)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This immediately triggered a number of questions: what do they mean by <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">e-democracy\/digital democracy<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">? How does digital engagement fit into the wider picture? What are we already doing? What should we be doing? What is my role in all of this? Ultimately, there were more questions than answers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>My initial inclination was that we\u2019re still trying to figure all of this out as it\u2019s still quite a new concept. After all, recently there have been numerous reports exploring how digital tools can support democratic outcomes, below are just a few:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nesta &#8211; Digital Democracy: The tools transforming political engagement<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">European Parliament &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.europarl.europa.eu\/RegData\/etudes\/STUD\/2016\/556949\/IPOL_STU(2016)556949_EN.pdf\">Potential and Challenges of E-Participation in the European Union<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Snook &amp; Democratic Society &#8211; <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/wearesnook.com\/gds-consultations\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Consultation Platform Discovery<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Having considered what is currently being achieved around digital democracy it became clear that the Scottish Government is doing a lot. From blogging to our website in transition (<a href=\"http:\/\/beta.gov.scot\">beta.gov.scot<\/a>), digital consultations, social media and live streaming, we\u2019re doing a lot to increase transparency and participation in policymaking. We&#8217;re also training civil servants\u00a0on how to use digital tools to engage better and to talk about their work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It seems as though everyone is trying to understand what digital democracy is in practice. Discussion at the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rise of E-Democracy<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> panel illustrated how we, as experts from different backgrounds, are trying to navigate\u00a0digital tools to seek opportunities to improve the way we engage and communicate. Whether we\u2019re focused on training, user experience, research, digital platforms, engagement\u2026 we\u2019re all trying to improve openness, transparency and participation with the aim to improve democracy.As panelists, we all agreed that digital democracy is much bigger than online voting, there&#8217;s a bigger sense around participation. After all, this isn\u2019t about digital, it\u2019s about democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>How do you think we can use modern technology to increase democratic participation?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It seems as though everyone is trying to understand what digital democracy is in practice, but what do we mean by e-democracy or digital democracy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[60,63,61,58,57,62,59],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-democracy","category-our-work","tag-democratic-society","tag-digital-democracy","tag-e-democracy","tag-european-parliament","tag-nesta","tag-science-festival","tag-snook"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Rise of E-Democracy - 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