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International Conference on Electronic Governance and Open Society: Challenges in Eurasia

EGOSE 2018: Electronic Governance and Open Society: Challenges in Eurasia pp 319–333Cite as

Challenges of E-Participation: Can the Opinions of Netizens Represent and Affect Mass Opinions?

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Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 947))

Abstract

This paper aims to understand the representativeness of online public opinion and the influence of online public-issue discussions on mass opinion. By analyzing three survey datasets from Taiwan, the findings show that online civic participants are not representative of the general population; moreover, online discussions of public issues do not directly affect general public opinion. According to these findings, this paper recommends that online public opinions are used with caution as they are not necessarily representative of general public opinion.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There are several examples that illustrate this; for instance, in June 2018, the Taiwanese government made “a big U turn regarding its childcare policy” due to a citizen proposal being endorsed by “thousands of netizens” (https://www.thenewslens.com/article/98742, visited on 2018/7/12). In addition, in 2016, “four thousand people left angry messages on Hualien County governor Shih’s Facebook homepage”; this resulted in the governor changing his previous decision to calling off school and work in Hualien due to the typhoon (http://www.peoplenews.tw/news/2dbd589c-2958-450e-a1b4-0964c42ad959, visited 2018/7/12).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Administration and Policy, National Taipei University, New Taipei City, Taiwan

    Chungpin Lee

Authors
  1. Chungpin Lee
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Correspondence to Chungpin Lee .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. eGovernance Center, ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Andrei Chugunov

  2. Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Yuri Misnikov

  3. North-West Institute of Management, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Evgeny Roshchin

  4. eGovernance Center, ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Dmitrii Trutnev

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Lee, C. (2019). Challenges of E-Participation: Can the Opinions of Netizens Represent and Affect Mass Opinions?. In: Chugunov, A., Misnikov, Y., Roshchin, E., Trutnev, D. (eds) Electronic Governance and Open Society: Challenges in Eurasia. EGOSE 2018. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 947. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13283-5_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13283-5_24

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-13282-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-13283-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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